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Volume 2, Issue 2 
2019 

Allies for Education 2018, 2, 2 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 

 
Standardized Tests and Their Impact on Students and 
Learning 

 
Dale Jones 
 

It’s Friday, May 10, and the school year is effectively over. At least that’s what many of my students 
think. The school calendar says we still have a month left, but for students who have just endured two 
weeks of daily testing for up to two hours each day, they feel like they’re finished.  

And why wouldn’t they? We can say whatever we want to them about the testing – that it won’t count 
on their grades, that it’s just one snapshot (more an epic film?) of their learning, and that we don’t want 
them to stress over it, but the zeitgeist surrounding the test reveals otherwise. Combine the secrecy, 
security measures, the timing towards the end of the school year, and of course the weeks-long length 
of CAASPP testing and the message to students that this is the most important thing they’ll do this year 
is undeniable.  

In my opinion it’s also the most destructive thing that they’ll do this year, and not just because they 
think school is over when they’re finished and we’ve effectively lost six weeks of teaching and learning. 

It’s not just the kids who think school may as well be over when testing concludes. Teachers are also 
prone to the same thinking as students, and many of them have also been encouraged or told to 
compact the curriculum so that all of the standards are covered prior to the onset of testing, out of a 
sense of fairness to the students, no less. So many teachers cram a 36-week pacing guide into 30 weeks. 
The resulting acceleration is truly unfair to many students who can’t keep up, and teaching is reduced to 
test preparation, with little time for reteaching, and no time to allow students to explore their passions 
and questions. 

The iterative nature of effective pedagogy, including time for reflection, is dismissed as impractical when 
coverage of standards takes precedence. This is only one of the ways that the emphasis on testing 
directly effects pedagogy in a way that is counter to what we have learned about good teaching from 
both research and experience.  

I had some hope that computerized testing that adjusts the questions based on the student’s 
performance may lead to better alignment between the learner and the test. Then I watched English 
Learners who had been in our country for just over a year take a test that devastated them. Even with 
embedded accommodations like text-to speech, these students were overwhelmed. Even though they 



Standardized Tests and Their Impact on Students and Learning 
Dale Jones 

Allies for Education 2018, 2, 2 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

had completed a year of tremendous growth and discovery, the start and end of their learning journey 
was outside of the range of what was being tested.  

I know a Moderate / Severe Special Day Class teacher who gives the California Alternative Assessment to 
her neuro-diverse students. Her classroom is built around learning social and pre-vocational skills. Math 
is taught by selling popcorn each day to the rest of the school and managing all aspects of their 
microbusiness. Some of their profits are taken to the grocery store where they practice shopping, and 
then cooking. Her students are learning to be as independent as possible, and they work very hard for 
many years on these life skills. Then they take the test, and since all students must be taught the 
standards, they are asked questions about slope, positive and negative integers, and the circumference 
of a circle.  

Perhaps the greatest danger of standardized testing is that it takes time and political capital away from 
assessments that may not be quantified, but which have the ability to inform, and if used creatively and 
without larger stakes, even transform learning. One example is the Emergent Curriculum that grows 
from the intense practice of deep engagement and learning to listen to the “hundred languages of 
children.” Reggio Emilia is an approach to teaching that is built around assessment practices that lead to 
further and deeper learning that is unique to each child, and respect time and developmental readiness. 
In Reggio, assessment is a part of the learning process, not an external measurement. 

I recently had a conversation with a doctor who asked me about CAASPP testing. I told her that the 
testing had no value to me as the school’s instructional leader, and that I thought it actually hurt the 
teaching and learning process. I explained some of the reasons why I felt this way, including that we 
don’t receive the results until the following school year and we can’t see how students did on individual 
test items. This alone reveals that CAASPP testing is really not about helping students learn or teachers 
teach. This doctor told me that every educator she has asked about the testing shares a similar opinion 
to mine. Thinking back, I can’t recall a single conversation with a teacher, principal, or superintendent 
who feels differently about the testing, but sadly, many have been unwilling to share those opinions 
publicly. And perhaps that’s why we still have a system of testing and accountability that reduces the 
miracle of learning to a number, and now an arrow on a gauge. 

About the Author 
Dale Jones has been a public school teacher and administrator for over 33 years. He co-founded the 
South Bay chapter of the Progressive Educators Network, and opened a K-8 parent participation school 
based on Reggio Emilia. He has no plans to retire! 

 


	Standardized Tests and Their Impact on Students and Learning
	About the Author

