In today’s Martin Center article, Richard Phelps explains how government meddling has undermined the value of educational testing.
Phelps writes, “To be truly standardized, the same content must be administered in the same manner to all students. To be independent of educator influence, they must be ‘externally’ administered—that is test materials must be managed and tests administered by non-school personnel.” That used to be the case, but, starting with the No Child Left Behind Act, government has made a terrible mess of educational testing.
NCLB, he explains, allowed local school officials to take over test administration, and they have used that authority to cheat: “The NCLB insistence on annual administrations of tests across seven grade levels virtually guaranteed lax security: teachers administer tests in their own classrooms to their own students and principals manage the distribution and collection of test materials in their own schools. Then, we judge schools and teachers based on those NCLB test scores they themselves proctor.”
In short, NCLB gave school personnel means, motive, and opportunity to fudge results.
Another culprit was the Common Core standards that were pushed through during the Obama years.
Phelps sums up with a plea for a return to federalism: “When rules are made at the federal level, the most powerful interest groups tend to get their way over everyone else. By contrast, ordinary citizens and smaller interest groups have more say with state governments, which are literally closer to them. This may explain why the wise writers of the US and state constitutions designated the states responsible for education.”