Every year, teachers and students across America brace for the usual drill: the next round of high-stakes standardized tests.
The students dread it. The teachers dread it. And yet every year, it must be done. Why?
It’s true we need concrete data on how students are doing so we can applaud their achievements and shore up their weaknesses (in areas like reading, for example). We need a ‘fair’ way to assess what students have learned.
By its very definition, a standardized test is designed to give as objective a result as possible. Every student takes the same test, composed of questions formatted as true/false or multiple choice to allow automated grading. A nice, even playing field—right?
Not quite. Critics of standardized testing point out that the structure favors students who thrive on this question format, or even those who are simply good guessers. Tests, graded solely on the right or wrong answer, also fail to measure the problem-solving, critical-thinking skills that students use to arrive at that answer.
At best, test scores shed light on just one part of a bigger picture. A student could be a great writer but miss a multiple-choice question about grammar. Another student could possess higher-than-average intelligence, but struggle with test-taking and perform poorly under the pressure. In both cases, the test results present an incomplete picture of the student’s abilities.
Testing is often described as “high stakes” because so much depends on it. Scores are often used to make school funding decisions, penalizing schools where students aren’t acing the test. Teacher performance and school quality are often judged by test scores, when the biggest factor in a student’s score is not their teacher or school, but their parents’ income.
In most places, standardized testing has become the master rather than the servant—inciting a frenzy of preparation that displaces actual instruction with stress-laden test prep.
Is this really fair to our students—or teachers?
Filling the vessel—or kindling the flame?
Around 100 AD, the Greek philosopher Plutarch argued that the mind of the student was not a vessel to be filled, but rather a fire to be kindled. Is public education today kindling a love of learning in students—or the opposite?
I believe we actually need to do both vessel-filling and fire-kindling. Students’ minds do need to be filled with new information as they grow in their knowledge of the world and themselves. In many ways, I think we do that well.
But, now more than ever, we also need to kindle their passion for learning so that they can become self-driven, lifelong learners who can adapt to the changing world we live in today. Our current model, driven by a test-centric learning culture, does not often succeed at this.
Sometimes we forget that students are people, too. They aren’t little robots to be programmed full of data to spit back out on a test. They need their own purpose for learning, a reason that matters to them. They need us to kindle their fire.
And this can only happen when educators take the time to forge a real human connection with them. Students want to feel seen, heard and valued by the adults in their lives; that’s where we can build the rapport that makes the student want to hear what the teacher has to say. Education is the transfer of enthusiasm through the conduit of a human connection.
But with all-important test prep (and everything else on teachers’ plates), forging a human connection with students is exactly what most don’t have the bandwidth to do. We need to free teachers to connect with their students on a meaningful level and teach their subject. Testing should just be a blip on the radar—not an annual tornado.
A challenge
I’m not against testing—but I am against the high-pressure, do-or-die ordeal it has become.
I’m not against teaching kids new information and assessing how much they’ve retained—but I am against teaching to the test.
I’m not against efforts to make testing equitable and fair—but I am against using test scores as the sole measure of a school’s quality, a teacher’s ability or a student’s future.
So where do we go from here?
I challenge state and education leaders to demote standardized testing from its role as master of our educational destiny and place it in an appropriate position where it can better serve students and teachers.
I challenge all of us to see test scores as one piece of the bigger picture.
Test, by all means. But don’t make it necessary to spend the preceding six weeks cramming test skills like memorization, recall, and studying into students. Don’t hang the threat of poor scores over teachers’ heads. Don’t make kids feel their value depends on their performance. Yes, test our students—and then let’s get to the real business of preparing them for successful, rewarding lives.
This article first appeared at Forbes.com on April 15, 2025. Read here.