Proactively Serving Our Disenfranchised Youth 63actions. As Kohn (2000) has noted, “Research has repeatedly found that the amount of
poverty in the communities... accounts for the great majority of the difference in test scores
from one area to the next” (p. 7). Although seldom discussed or debated in the mainstream
media, the use of standardized instruments for measurement of overall performance is not to
bring forth educational change at all. What is masqueraded as a device for social and
economic change is nothing more than a way to solidify the existing social and economic
divisions of our society? Sacks (1999) posited the following:
Indeed, if social engineers had set out to invent a virtually perfect inequality
machine, designed to perpetuate class and race divisions, and that appeared to abide
by all requisite state and federal laws and regulations, those engineers could do no
better than the present-day accountability systems already put to use in American
schools. (p. 158)Testing procedures may be popular with the general public but, as education
administration and education foundations faculty (with specific interests in the field of ethics)
we should ask, are they the right things to do? I feel rather certain that more than 12,500
African American and Hispanic students, from the state of Florida, would not agree with the
“rightness” of this choice. You see, these 12,500 students left high school without diplomas,
even though they completed every secondary school academic requirement. The one
requirement that they did not meet, however, was the “cut score” for the state-wide FCAT test
(Smith & Ruhl-Smith, 2006). Ethically, have we acted in a just way toward these students?
Those legislators, local politicians, and business professionals who argue that increased focus
on academic measurement will, without question, improve student achievement might think
that we have. To the contrary, we have ignored the importance of the holistic nature of
learning and devalued the real educational experience for these youngsters: we have betrayed
them. In the first edition of To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, Ayers (1993) said it well:
Standardized tests can’t measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual
thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical
reflection, or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes. What they can
measure and count are isolated skills, specific facts and functions, the least interesting
and least significant aspects of learning. (p. 59)
To speak of testing without any discussion of the costs surrounding this testing movement
is also irresponsible. Welner and Weitzman (2005) reported that Mathis carefully analyzed
40 adequacy studies, covering 26 different states, and reached a conservative estimate that the
additional costs associated with providing all students adequate standards-based opportunities
(as required by No Child Left Behind Legislation) would require an overall increase in
funding of 27.5%. Therefore, for a state to achieve NCLB goals, total spending in said state
would need to increase by at least 27.5%. Ask yourselves, which of your states is ready to
increase spending by a level greater than 3%. I posit that the answer is virtually zero – now,
take that 3% and multiply it by a factor of nine and ponder your response anew.
Reviewing finances for the standardized testing movement and not conjoining said costs
with a discussion of the current financial outlay required for “doing business” under NCLB
overall would be simply myopic. As many of you know, states are projected to spend up to
$5.3 billion between the years of 2002 and 2008 to implement NCLB-mandated tests (Miner,