Someone should listen to Charles Murray.
The conservative intellectual, famous for his absurd treatise on IQ and biology, has come around to what I see as a sensible view of standardized testing: It is badly flawed and can be detrimental to students.
In today’s New York Times, he argues that recent studies “that have failed to show major improvements in test scores” for charter schools can not be “explained away.” But, he says, that does not mean that the charters are failures. Rather, he poses an interesting question:
Why not instead finally acknowledge that standardized test scores are a terrible way to decide whether one school is better than another? This is true whether the reform in question is vouchers, charter schools, increased school accountability, smaller class sizes, better pay for all teachers, bonuses for good teachers, firing of bad teachers — measured by changes in test scores, each has failed to live up to its hype.
I can’t argue. I’ve been saying for a long time that allegedly objective tests rarely are objective and that test scores offer only a very small piece of the puzzle in judging the progress of students and schools or the abilities of teachers.
Murray turned away from the standardized test several years ago for sound reasons. He calls the SAT “superfluous” and “outright bad for American education,” providing
little information about high school students not already provided by their grades and scores on so-called achievement tests, exams that are tied to specific academic subjects.
He believes “dumping the SAT would have numerous benefits:”
scuttling what he sees as a deceptive test-prep industry, undercutting the unproductive smugness that comes from thinking one’s high SAT score reflects personal glory (he views it as the luck of the genetic draw), and short-circuiting the contention that the SAT amounts to a conspiracy against low-income students.
In today’s Times, he expands on this theme, saying that “measurable differences in schools explain little about differences in test scores.”
The reason for the perpetual disappointment is simple: Schools control only a small part of what goes into test scores.
Cognitive ability, personality and motivation come mostly from home. What happens in the classroom can have some effect, but smart and motivated children will tend to learn to read and do math even with poor instruction, while not-so-smart or unmotivated children will often have trouble with those subjects despite excellent instruction. If test scores in reading and math are the measure, a good school just doesn’t have that much room to prove it is better than a lesser school.
And a good students has just as little room to prove the same.
He remains a supporter of charter schools — a point with which I vehemntly disagree — but he’s right on testing and one can only hope that other conservatives follow, making it more likely that the testing regime that now rules our educational establishment will fall.
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 
There is big money behind this \”school choice\” fraud. Some very powerful and influential billionaires and millionaires are behind charter schools and vouchers…such as the Waltons, the US Chamber of Commerce and Bill Gates.The charter school movement is mostly a conservative movement but both parties have hopped on this movement to put the knife in the back of our public schools. One of the big motivations is to kill the teachers' unions, the conservatives, like Christie, are salivating at the possibility of destroying some of the most powerful unions in the country.Obama is all for testing schools to death and punishing teachers based on the results of those tests.There are a whole multitude of studies over the years that have shown that charter schools are no better than public schools and that there are more terrible charter schools than there are good ones. Overall and on average, public schools outperform charter schools. NJ public schools are in the top tier of schools in the country, they rank 2nd or 3rd of the top performing public schools in the country. So don't hand me this nonsense that a unionized teaching force is bad for education.While Christie is slashing the funding for public schools he is maintaining the funding for charter schools and is promoting the bi-partisan voucher bill which will, in effect, take tax payer money for vouchers for private and religious schools.Private industry in NJ is certainly behind school vouchers.
Comment from the NY Times web site:PhilThis is just great…typical conservative clap-trap: if the results aren't to their liking–just change the subject. Charter school kids don't do better than public kids…complain that the test is inadequate to prove that charters are really better. Pathetic.
Another comment from the NY Times web site regarding Murray:Bob, Ph. D.Waldport, ORMay 5th, 2010Isn't it interesting how the most vociferous critics of public schools extol the wonders of standardized testing to bolster their arguments re: failing public schools; then, as in this piece, pooh-pooh the idea that results of such testing, when comparing their preferred elitist solutions to poor public schools, fail to show that their private academies have much to offer in the way of genuine education? \”Have to find another yardstick boys, this one still only measures three feet.\”This piece illustrates the moral and social bankruptcy of the so-called \”school choice movement\” which is more about cultivating elitist ego-centrism (as Murray admits) than about providing the best possible education for all American children. It is further evidence of abandonment by the elitists of even a pretense of concern for the common good, and attempts to elevate ego-centrism to the status of a positive value. But these \”choicers\” sure want public financing for their elite academies! A prep school for Goldman Sachs traders, perhaps?
The Charles Murray, (a scholar at the right wing pro CORPORATE libertarian American Enterprise Institute), article in the NY Times generated 121 comments. Below are a few more of the comments which I cherry picked. Just interesting to see some differing points of view that challenge Mr. AEI.: AnonymousWhen I was growing up, my parents had a realistic view of the world. We were not wealthy and were new to the middle class, as they had both grown up in immigrant homes in the city. We didn't expect vouchers to give us school choice. My parents tried the local parochial school but it was filled and the pastor could not be persuaded to accept us, even with a generous \”donation\” equivalent to nearly a year's mortgage payments on my parents' home. I went to the local public school instead(Prince George's County by the way), graduated the University of Maryland with honors and then onto a fellowship in graduate school at a private (expensive) university. As a child, I had music lessons through school, sports through school and was active in my church. I'm not sure why vouchers are the magical answer to everything. And, I'm not sure what the \”progressive\” curriculum is that Charles Murray dislikes, although I suspect it's anything conservatives don't agree with (or should I say, \”with which conservatives disagree.\”) tacitus0Houston, TexasMay 5th, 2010As a public educator who has long questioned the motives of those advocating school choice and the impact it would have on those students left in public schools, I found the results of the analysis of the school choice program \”heartening.\” Only a person with Murray's agenda would be depressed to learn that our public schools — even when those parents with the will and means pull their students and send them to charter schools — do as good a job as the vaunted charter schools that Murray champions. Of course he is right to point out that standardized test scores are an awful way to measure school success. But, I find it amusing that Murray has apparently only come around to this point of view when the data doesn't support the superiority of charter schools. Like too many experts and conservative educational gurus Murray has always viewed education reform through the lenses of his personal bias. In other words he would make a bad scientist because he has always tried to make the data match his hypothesis rather than drawing conclusions based on observable facts. And now, when the facts don't support his theories, he claims the data is flawed. Seems to me that Murray has forgotten the \”scientific method.\” Maybe he needs to go back to a 5th grade public school science class for some remediation.