J.R. Labbe’s recent post about Chris Bell’s silly campaign ads reminded me to write about the other thing about them that bothers me.  He seems to be one of those people who bellyache about “standardized tests” in public schools.  He says something to the effect of how Texas should be preparing children for college, rather than teaching them to take a standardized test. 

Oh?  You mean the same colleges that require standardized tests for admission?

I’m not a fan of public education, but as long as a) it’s compulsory, and b) I have to pay for it, then I’m going to demand accountability.  This means that there has to be a way to measure whether students are learning the required subjects.  The only objective way to do this is through some kind of standardized test, administered by an outside agency. 

Opposition to testing, especially from people in the education field, always gets my antennae twitching.  I can’t help but wonder what they have to hide, or why they’re so afraid of being held accountable for the results of their work.  Out here in the real world, we’re always held accountable for the results of our work, so I have absolutely zero sympathy for teachers and educrats in this regard.

I also hear complaints about “teaching to the test.”  This also gets my attention, albeit in a negative fashion.  Here’s why:  If the teachers are teaching the material, and the students are learning it, then the test should be a simple matter.  If students have to be extensively coached on the specific test questions or topics, then that actually says to me that the test is doing part of its job.  Namely, it’s ferreting out bad teaching practices (and/or bad students).  Any coaching situation is one where we’ve identified a failure in the learning process.  If the education establishment was really interested in learning (instead of extorting more and more money out of us), it would use the test to do continuous process improvement.  But perhaps that’s too much like the private sector for them.  We wouldn’t want to pollute the art of teaching with hard-nosed real-world processes.

Standardized testing is NOT going away.  Not as long as people like me are dragged into the situation by having to pay for public education.  As an underwriter of this enterprise, I’m going to demand accountability.  So, teachers and educrats, it’s time for you to make your peace with testing and get back to the business of teaching.  I’m tired of listening to the bellyaching.