Testing Investigation

Written by: Orion Bailey, Tanis Kirk, and Lily Young

Edited by: Kovy Weller, Altair Hammad, and Zara Saddy

History of Testing

Testing in the U.S. has been around for over 150 years. It started with oral exams, and has now evolved into one of the most important things in modern education.

Early testing was often as simple as a spoken presentation. Later, many teachers started to assign writing tasks. Around the 1860s, written examinations were mandated by the school system. President Charles Eliot, a Harvard graduate, proposed the idea of a standardized college entrance exam, despite colleges already having their own separate tests. In 1900, the College Entrance Examination Board was created, and, in 1901, the first exams were given across the country.

Testing soon became more common. It was now scattered throughout the country. Some children were given a test called the Stanford-Binet, which was an early version of the IQ test that we know today. Oakland, California was one of the first attempts at large scale testing. By this point, there were over 100 unique tests, all designed by different experts to assess achievement in elementary and secondary schools. The first SATs were soon adopted throughout the nation by the College Board, which was very similar to the one we know today.

From 1935-1936, companies began to use computers to process tests at a much more cost effective rate. It dropped one of the most common tests from $5 a test to $0.50. This was made possible by the first test scanner, the IBM 805. The machine remained mostly the same until 2005, when a writing section was added. This device was one of the most influential developments in all of testing.

Enter the modern era of testing that we know today. In 2001, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind act. It made testing mandatory in all states, and most students were tested every year. Due to the problems and the inequity of this reform, Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. While this was definitely an improvement upon its predecessor, there were still lots of problems.

One of the many issues is that they focus too heavily on testing. This leaves students unprepared for real world challenges, and teachers not wanting to make their own lessons for fear of lowering test scores. The real problem with the focus on standardized testing is that many children perform better with other forms of testing, regardless of their intelligence. For example, say there is a child who is very proficient in writing creative essays, but not as gifted in multiple choice questions. Tutoring has also been pushed much more since No Child Left Behind. However, the low income, low performing schools that were required to provide tutoring had almost no change after it was implemented. These things are why we need to decenter and place less importance on standardized tests, and rather help the students in a way that they can learn to the best of their abilities.

Money in Testing

In today’s modern schooling system, tests are a major part of it. They are an integral part of our education. However, you may be surprised by how much money is in the industry.

For example, the company that makes our M-STEP test (DRC Insight) makes over 600 million dollars a year. That’s more than the average salary of 9 thousand people combined. It is also a profit focused company, so the CEO could be making hundreds of millions of dollars, while most of their employees make around 28 dollars an hour. While that is not terrible, the vast majority of their employees are seasonal or temporary, meaning they only work for a few months then leave.

HMH (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is another testing company, making over 900 million dollars a year. Located in Beaverton, Oregon, USA, founded in 1977. They are the company who owns the NWEA test and corporation. Distributing it to schools in the USA along with 145 other countries and over 16 million students. That’s about 3 times the population of Finland. Unlike DRC, most of their employees are not seasonal/temporary. While still hiring some, the majority of their work force is permanent.

One of the largest testing companies in the world is Pearson. Making 3.5 billion dollars annually, they provide over 300 tests to 6500 schools and 3.4 million students. Located in London, England, and founded in 1844, they are a giant of a company with over 20 thousand employees, who each make anywhere from 24-56 dollars an hour. That is not so bad, but for a billion dollar company that is just a drop in the bucket.

All of these companies make hundreds of millions to billions of dollars every year, and all of the ones mentioned are for profit, meaning that any money they make they get to keep. This encourages them to keep the education system the same, regardless of how it is treating students. Making students go through test after test just so they can be rich.

Ultimately, the testing industry for students has been plagued by greedy companies trying to take advantage of the mistakes of our government. Now these companies have lobbyists in our government, making it harder to reform our education system. However, hope is not lost. If we work together, we can finally put an end to these pointless tests.

Student + Staff Opinions on Testing

Desmond A:

Testing is a negative for students

Testing is too often

Testing has not negatively affected them

“I would make them like once a year and way shorter”

“So much time on the Chromebook screen gives me headaches from the bluelight”

Donovon M:

Testing is a positive for students

Testing is not too often

Testing has not negatively affected them

“Uh I would make them shorter”

“It made me smarter, but lazier because it felt like that was all that I needed to focus on”

Lucas R:

Testing is a negative for students

Testing is too often

Testing has negatively affected them

“I’d make them 20 questions long and only once each year”

“It’s hard to sit for 3 hours and look at the screen”

Rosemary R:

Testing is a positive for students

Testing is not too often

Testing has not negatively affected them

“Not be 50 questions long”

“It helps me know what to work on”

Ava S:

Testing is a positive for students

Testing is not too often

Testing has not negatively affected them

“Not be so long”

“I get better each time”

MIllicent T:

Testing is a negative for students

Testing is too often

Testing has negatively affected them

“Get rid of M-STEP”

“Makes me stressed out”

Donovan E

Testing is a negative for students

Testing is too often

Testing has negatively affected them

“Make it one big test that is more adapted to each student instead of NWEA and M-STEP both.

“It messes up my sleep schedule on testing weeks”

Lily H:

Testing is a negative for students

Testing is too often

Testing has not negatively affected them

“Probably make them shorter or give more breaks”

“It helps me a little because I have to manage my time on the testing weeks”

August K:

Testing is an overall negative to students.

We test too often

Testing has negatively affected them

“Removing it because we already have grades.”

“Not Really”

Robert P:

Testing is an overall negative to students.

We test too often

Testing has negatively affected them.

“ Getting rid of it”

“Mental Scars”

Samuel G:

Testing is an overall negative to students.

We don’t test too often

Testing has negatively affected them

“More snacks and time to complete it”

Getting trampled

Kenton B:

Testing is an overall positive to students.

We don’t test too often

Testing has not negatively affected them

“No”

“Headaches, sleepy”

Many people have different opinions on testing, but of the students we interviewed, 73% of people said they believe that it is a negative for students. 67% of students believed that we test too often. Most importantly, 60% of students said that our current testing methods have negatively affected them personally.

While testing is not necessarily a negative thing in concept, the way it is currently done focuses too much on the testing and not enough on actually helping students’ learning. Many people agree with this statement, 93% of people we interviewed said that would change testing in some way and some saying they would remove it entirely. Some of these views may be extreme, but they show you how much people dislike the way we do testing.

In conclusion, many people have different beliefs on testing. Negative, positive, or somewhere in between. Still, the vast majority of students think we should change it in some capacity. Even some teachers think we need to change. All this information backs up the idea that we need to make testing more individualized instead of using the same methods on each student, as well as take down the companies who only care about profits.