Truth Or Dare: The US DOE’s Standardized Tests

At Quick and the Ed, Elena Silva points out that the US DOE’s National Center for Education Statistics has developed a “Kids’ Zone.” It has a Dare to Compare section which permits the web surfer to test his or her acumen on multiple choice questions found on various national [NAEP] and international [TIMSS and CivEd] comparative exams.

With a background in civics education and a doctorate in political philosophy, I decided to try out the 9th grade Civics questions. The questions come up in a different order and with slightly different tacks if you try it more than once, but they are fundamentally the same. It’s not that hard to score a 10 out of 10, if you follow the standardized test ace’s first and last law of test taking: “Always figure out what they want you to conclude.” The more sophisticated your thinking and reasoning, the more trouble you will create for yourself.

For example, in one question students are provides a text which reads:

The test then asks:

The authors of the advertisement think that higher taxes are?

• a good thing.
• necessary in a free market economy.
• necessary for economic growth.
• a bad thing.

Clearly, the answer the test makers want is the last, a bad thing.

But if you know very much about the libertarian politics which is portrayed in the text, the notion that taxes are a bad thing is clearly an oversimplification. Some taxes are a bad thing for the libertarians, the sort of taxes they would characterize as excessive and unnecessary, but the qualifying terms are important. Libertarians [as opposed to anarchists] would argue for a minimal government — not no government at all. They would certainly see the need, for example, for a government to protect the property of the wealthy and to prevent the emergence of trade unions. And in order to do that, government would have to raise taxes. The second answer could thus be correct, if it was understood to be limited taxes for certain purposes. It certainly isn’t unambiguously wrong.

Another question reads as follows:

Two people work at the same job but one is paid less than the other. The principle of equality would be violated if the person is paid less because of:

• fewer educational qualifications.
• less work experience.
• working fewer hours.
• gender.

Once again, the answer the test makers want is the last, gender.

But there are many different conceptions of equality, many different conceptions of distributive justice in democratic political thought, and a number of these conceptions would disqualify the other justifications for differentiated pay as well. An absolute concept of equality — an equality of economic condition of the sort practiced by 19th century American utopian communities — certainly would. Even less exacting standards of equality could argue that if the same job is being done, workers should be paid the same, regardless of educational background or experience. Only a more relative notion of economic equality, such as quality of opportunity, would allow the other differentiated forms of pay.

As a teacher of civics, I would make a point of teaching my students the different concepts of equality, and having them think through which concepts should be applied in different contexts. This is important because there are some instances in American constitutional law where an absolute equality is demanded — one person, one vote — and other instances where an equality of opportunity will suffice — equal protection of the law. Students need to understand that difference in the law, and figure out if they agree with it or if they would parse the requirements of constitutional equality differently.

There are more examples of the same, and in a sample of ten questions!

That which is really important in education — building the capacity for creative, critical thought and problem solving in students — is lost in standardized, multiple choice tests. These samples remind us of this reality once again.

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