Standardized testing has been a topic for debate for years, even decades. Especially today, with teaching shortages, high turnover, burnout, and more, teachers themselves are calling for a limitation or even abolishment of annual state-wide testing. The complaints filing in do not stop at educators. According to interviews conducted and explained in "Family Experiences with Standardized Assessments Leading to Participation in the Opt Out Movement" by Christy Lee Evans, parental input on standardized assessment generally believes that "too much testing is going on in American schools, testing is having negative effects on teachers and children, schools and systems are not well-prepared to respond to families who wish to opt out, and parents support their own teachers and/or schools, even when they believe education in general is on the wrong track" (Evans). The Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) is made up of TN Ready exams for grades 3-8, End-of-Course Assessments for specific subject areas for high school students, MSAA and TCAP-Alt for students with disabilities, ACESS for English Learners, college entrance exam (either ACT or SAT) for high school students, and NAEP for 4th, 8th, and 12th grade students. A Tennessee student who is non-disabled, a native English speaker, and college bound student will have taken approximately 58 state-required standardized tests by graduation (not counting subparts of these tests, which may divide a single test into multiple days of testing). For ESL students, the amount of testing only grows because these students are required to take the multi-day World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) test.
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Students taking a test at the University of Vienna in 2005. |
As if the amount of standardized testing wasn't already overwhelmingly large, ESL students are subject to more testing than the average student because they are subject to WIDA testing to assess their English language learning progress. I argue if all Tennessee students are required to take these standardized tests, ESL students should be provided translation services when appropriate (for example, in math, science, and social studies tests because having a certain fluency of English is expected for students to complete the test). If students aren't given these translation services when appropriate, their test results are dramatically skewed because many students simply guess on each question because they don't understand the material. The student may know how to multiply or divide, but not understand that the question is asking them to do so. The student may understand the process of photosynthesis, but not know how to express it using English vocabulary. Bad test results can produce consequences to teachers and schools, resulting in reduced funding. These invalid test results due to the lack of translation services are harming everyone and wasting time that could be put toward actually learning content or improving their English language acquisition. I argue that translation services should be seriously considered for standardized testing or that parents of ESL students be provided more "opt out" options. Some experts like Ibram X. Kendi claim that standardized testing is racist and should be eliminated on that basis. Ibram explains in his testimony to the Boston Coalition for Education Equality that "Standardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade Black and Brown minds and legally exclude their bodies from prestigious schools" (Kendi). However, since I do not see an end to standardized testing coming any time soon, I call for a change in how ESL students are tested and how their test results are compared to native English speaking students, creating unfair disadvantages. Standardized testing in general is created to observe how well students are able to learn content, not necessarily how well a student can understand English.
