It’s time to rethink how we test K-12

On March 1, The Gazette editorial board questioned the wisdom of the expensive and yet-to-be proven computer-based testing program for Iowa students. They also wondered where the extra money to run the program would come from.

I want to challenge you to consider that the choice between Smarter Balance and Iowa Assessment tests as a false equivalence, there are more options out there than just thinking in terms of two testing companies. Instead, the laws that mandate such tests and the thinking behind them can and must be changed.

The goal of adaptive testing - that is, computers alter the test based on how the questions are answered - is worthy. The purpose of such a system suggests two larger issues in society's hopes for public education, one of which is clear and one that is not.

The desire for more precise data on student performance is clear. Hidden is the shift toward centralized aggregation of student data. Children become numbers, concentrated into corporate boardrooms or bureaucratic offices.

These trends risk transforming the education journey into a commoditized process, one that trades the judgment of trained and interested professionals for software.

At what point does the educational experience bend so strongly toward satisfying ever-intensifying testing that the student is turned into a product rather than a future active citizen?

Testing children cannot identify or fix the real challenges of education. The fundamental problems that challenge student achievement are neither individual student deficiencies nor school problems but society-wide problems: childhood hunger, poverty, the economic troubles of parents, access to enriching experiences, etc. Society-wide problems demand society-wide solutions.

Rather than accepting the dominant thinking about testing, the editors could have imagined other ways to use those moneys and public focus.

The efforts could be directed to a range of areas such as improve the living conditions of children, lowering class sizes, expanding enrichment programs in summer camps, museums, and internships, and furthering professional training for educators, to name a few.

The essential matter for education rests on the interactions between people: teachers-students-peers-parents.

Also, an individual test score or large data sets distract people from the fact that no one has an individual education. An education is in context of classmates, the times, the intentions of others, and one's own hopes - in addition to acquiring necessary facts and skills.

The courage to recognize and re-embrace the truly personal basis of education offers us both an alternative to 'testing” but also a way forward to a more human-focused, child-centered system of education to prepare children to become citizens in full.

' John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D., of Marion, teaches U.S. history with an emphasis on environmental issues at Linn-Mar High School. Comments: johnlhanson@hotmail.com