Giving Compass' Take:

· State exams have played a large role in the academic world, with scores determining if students move on in school. Now, AEI reports that parents are concerned that there is too much emphasis on testing and that the role it plays in education has gone too far.

· Does having a state exam at the end of the year take away focus from learning subjects equally? What does this mean for supporting certain education initiatives over others, depending on how testing-focused they are?

· Read more about standardized testing and the information is gives us.

As the school year approaches its close, tens of millions of students across the land are wrapping up their annual state tests. For all the annoyance and anger these tests engender, we would do well to remember that they exist mostly in response to a sensible expectation that public schools be accountable and that parents know how their children are doing.

After all, in 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind law raised the curtain on the “accountability era”, more than 90 percent of parents said that students should have to pass a standardized test to be promoted to the next grade. Nearly two decades later, for all the trouble and turmoil of the NCLB era, nearly 80 percent of the public supports required testing in reading and math. At the same time, many parents think testing has gone too far, with nearly two-thirds saying there is too much of an emphasis on testing.

These mixed feelings are not a sign of confusion; rather, they reflect a sensible awareness of the costs as well as the benefits of testing. Last year, in his valuable book The Testing Charade, Harvard University’s Dan Koretz aptly captured this tension, noting that tests provide valuable insight into how students, schools, and states are doing — but that testing has also been distorted by overuse, ill-conceived accountability systems, and a fixation on test preparation.

Tests are a useful tool and it’s a mistake to let our concerns run amok or prompt us to make rash decisions full of anti-testing fervor. But, like any tool, testing is only as useful as the skill with which it’s wielded. As testing season draws to a close, parents, educators, and policymakers would do well to keep that in mind.

Read the full article about end of school exams by Frederick M. Hess and Brendan Bell at AEI.