What if the election depended on passing a test?
Though some readers may access this later, at present in America, it is election season. If the logic of K12 education was applied to politics, the office of the American President would be chosen by greater success on a test.
What would be on that test?
A case could be made for a wealth of knowledge about national history to help demonstrate awareness of what has gone well and what has gone poorly in the past.
How many questions would be enough to tell a good candidate from a mediocre one? It must be a considerable number in order to reflect the array of history from the beginning to the present with enough depth to capture a variety of experiences. If it included five questions for every decade since British colonization and some additional ones to reflect pre-Columbian America on the whole, that looks like 210-220 questions for the details.
Certainly, some document-based questions would be necessary to demonstrate map skills, deciphering of tables and other data, and decoding primary-source written content within its contextual meaning.
- What does this triangular trade map represent?
- What was the strategy of these troops in the Revolution?
- What does this photograph of very young children and machines reflect about factory life?
The test just got at least thirty new questions to reflect DBQ strategies and contextual analysis. Some will require deeper interactions than a quick click on a multiple choice response.
Of course, some core ideas must simply be known by heart and can be demonstrated through short answer responses. Knowing the first president shouldn’t simply be a choice among three other possibilities so that guesswork could provide a correct answer. There are at least 25 things that a leader should know by heart about the country.
Other reasoning skills are part of the package. When someone is signing legislation which leads to the expenditure of trillions of dollars, there must be math questions. The 2024 United States budget expenditure is just under 7 trillion dollars; the U.S. will take in just under 5 trillion dollars. This definitely suggests that the introduction of a math test could be extremely beneficial in the future. Surely, a variety of basic and some abstract math problems, including story problems, are warranted. Thirty or so should do it.
Although there are special advisors to the President, some rudimentary scientific knowledge makes sense. For example, the basics of the scientific method are a must. This would aid reasoning when evaluating studies that suggest something is true when it may not be borne out in the available data. Some use cases of how to draw appropriate conclusions from the data are valuable. Additionally, the scientific setup of a control group and a treatment or experimental group make up useful knowledge when being presented with study results. These questions would be longer and involve application of scenarios and observations. Even ten of these would add considerably to the test.
It goes without saying that communication skills are a mandatory component. It’s not enough to have a speech-writer put words in a candidate’s mouth. The candidate should be able to be clear in extemporaneous settings, particularly those with heads of state and other elected officials while conducting business. Therefore, some essay writing is essential. Ten essays might capture a variety of moral and philosophical topics, with a couple of practical applications sprinkled on top.
Granted, there was hyperbole in that exploration. The current method of persuasion, creative deception, omission, and glad-handing clearly has flaws. Would testing candidates be a better method? Would it be a solution?
What was that? “Couldn’t be worse” and “No, it’s not a solution” seem to fit.
So why is it the answer for students?
- Is it enough if they remember vocabulary?
- Does knowing an historical date make a difference?
- Would the perfect essay reveal essential cognitive understanding which can apply beyond the prompt?
- If students knew that $7 trillion out and $5 trillion in was a problem, would they recognize the necessary steps to make a change?
- If there are experts (or Google or ChatGPT) to tell them about a scientific study or map analysis or data table, do they need to be able to do it themselves?
Much like snapshots, a test is only a glimpse at the truth, and sometimes it is blurry.
If this soapbox has a purpose, it is in the reflection that testing pretends to deliver an absolute. Too many factors can influence a test…a home environment, strategies taught years prior, the amount of sleep a student gets before the test, the time of day, what they ate for breakfast, whether they like the teacher of the class, how their relationship with a significant other is going at that particular moment, and if they have friends in the class. Too many things cloud the picture for anything to be truly absolute.
Experience is a truer opportunity for applied knowledge on a topic. Twenty prepared questions on a test is nothing compared to an open Q&A session in which a speaker must defend their position in the face of a variety of topic-based questions. Those who know the material will be successful; those who don’t will sputter. There is no faking it under scrutiny.
Acing a vocabulary quiz is much different than carrying on a conversation, whether it is in a language class or in any class based upon successful dialogue when someone has mastery of the subject matter. Levels of understanding are eminently clear.
A test will reveal if a person has Type A, B, or O blood; a test does NOT reveal whether a person has mastered a subject.
However, failure on an arbitrary content test can impact the social and emotional well-being of students significantly and lower their performance in the testing environment (Heissel et al., 2021). Therefore, even if the test actually demonstrated specific knowledge, the very nature of the experience of testing would invalidate the result.
The answer — frankly, the only answer — is authentic assessment, which mimics the use of the content in “real world” situations.
More on authentic assessment next time…
Teacher Takeaways
Remarkably seldom in adult life are tests applied to judge fluency, cognition, skills, or functionality, yet students are judged by this method daily, with high-stakes consequences. Tests are inherently flawed.
Yellen, J.L., and Young, S.D. “Joint Statement of Janet L. Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, and Shalanda D. Young, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, on Budget Results for Fiscal Year 2024”. U.S. Department of the Treasury. 2024-10-18. Retrieved 2024-10-21.
Heissel, J.A., Adam, E.K., Doleac, J.L., Figlio, D.N., Meer, J. Testing, stress, and performance: How students respond physiologically to high-stakes testing. Education Finance and Policy 2021; 16 (2): 183–208. doi:https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00306
EmpowerED 