Letters: Sunday Dialogue: Too Tethered to Tests?

Readers debate the influential role of SAT and A.P. exams.

To the Editor:

In more than four decades of teaching, including 23 years as a secondary-school principal, I have become increasingly dismayed at the growing influence of standardized tests and the test preparation industry for students as young as those entering preschool to those who are preparing to enter graduate-level programs. So I was heartened by the news last month that most New York City private schools are likely to drop the E.R.B. entrance exam for kindergarten and first grade.

Yet this is but one small step in dismantling a financial behemoth that not only produces unrelieved anxiety for students and their parents, but also interferes with students' independent thinking, deep engagement with ideas in the classroom, and, ultimately, intellectual and moral development. I offer three practical suggestions to restore power to classroom teachers and school leaders rather than the testing industry.

First, I call on colleges and universities to drop the requirement of SAT scores. At a time when economically advantaged students are taking prep courses for the SAT, while students who lack the economic means are without these benefits, our colleges are further promoting the inequities of our society.

Second, our secondary schools must curb their appetite for Advanced Placement courses, which too often fail to prepare students adequately for college-level course work. They also put pressure on students to perform well on the A.P. exams in the spring, leaving them exhausted and lacking a spirit of intellectual curiosity.

Finally, now is the time for all of our schools, from preschool through graduate education, to embrace once again the belief that imagination and creativity are the cornerstones of genuine learning. As E. M. Forster wrote more than a century ago in "Howards End," in addressing the shortcomings of British universities: "Oh yes, you have learned men who collect ... facts, and facts, and empires of facts. But which of them will rekindle the light within?"

PETER SCHMIDT
Phillipsburg, N.J., Oct. 7, 2013

The writer is the director of studies at Gill St. Bernard's School.

Readers React

Standardized testing is neither a panacea or a boogeyman, and the argument that teaching will be different in a meaningful way if there are more tests or fewer tests is not a realistic one. Without tests, students will still be called upon to learn facts, and with more tests, they would still be called upon to develop their ability to think clearly.

The suggestion that colleges drop the SAT ignores two realities. First, decades of research show that preparatory courses yield only a modest rise in SAT scores.

Second, if the SAT goes away, something will have to replace it. Colleges process thousands of applicants, and every known alternative to the SAT is less reliable and more subject to manipulation by students with the resources to engage in the right extracurricular activities, to travel abroad, to pad their portfolios and so forth.

The testing industry is a necessary evil. Individuals students, schools, colleges and society in general benefit when reliable, meaningful and accurate assessments are used to inform decisions. Could tests be better? Sure. Would teaching be better if there were no standardized tests? Maybe, but there is really no evidence that this would occur.

KEVIN MURPHY
Fort Collins, Colo., Oct. 9, 2013

The writer is an affiliate professor of psychology at Colorado State University.

It's striking how voices for educational reform centered on standards, tests and accountability typically come from politicians, business leaders and pundits — people with no experience or training in education. Actual educators such as Mr. Schmidt see the considerable downside of the reforms. But educators will not carry the day, because the fix is in.

Ironically, the educational reform agenda emphasizes accountability but is itself unaccountable; all results are attributed to educator performance, not to the efficacy of the reforms. When test results are good, it is because educators stepped up; when results lag, it is because educators underperformed. Never are the reforms held accountable. As such, educational reform cannot fail; it can only be failed.

BRUCE TORFF
Locust Valley, N.Y., Oct. 9, 2013

The writer is a professor at the School of Education, Hofstra University.

Those who attend or teach in elite private schools may still have the luxury to muse over the impact of testing on students' and teachers' intellectual and professional curiosity. Teachers in the public schools, most of whom believe passionately that a sense of discovery and delight is what drives all students to learn, are now too busy frantically jumping through hoops imposed upon us by No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top to "rekindle the light within."