A Lack of Accountability: Teacher Perspectives on Equity, Accuracy, and Standardized Testing

Abstract

A lthough the rationale for standardized testing has, for decades, included the call to ensure equality in educational delivery and content for all students, there is little evidence that standardization improves education outcomes for low-income students, racially minoritized students, or English language learners (ELLs). Achievement gaps for these groups have in many cases remained the same or grown with increased use of standardized testing, as have the divides between individual schools and districts. For over a decade, research has linked standardized testing to inequality in education in the United States and Canada. 1 Equality in education is often understood through the prism of equity, which recognizes that fairness requires, at times, treating students differently in order to ensure every student has equal access to successful educational outcomes. Treating everyone the same way, regardless of their strengths and challenges, can increase rather than mitigate inequality. At its most basic, an equity approach would never ask students to run a race when some have shoes and others are barefoot, or demand students with mobility impairments participate in a foot race against those who have no mobility impairments. Taken a little further, an equity approach would consider the results of the race (even one in which all students have shoes and similar mobility) in light of opportunities for training, a healthy diet, coaching, and other contextual factors impacting the individual. Taken even further, an equity perspective might challenge the notion of competition altogether (not the question of comparison but that of competition). Schooling is not a competitive sport after all, and A. Kempf, The Pedagogy of Standardized Testing