The concept of standardized testing first emerged in the American education system in the 19th century. Educators and administrators needed a way to assess student knowledge and growth to make policy decisions and assess if students were prepared for college. Rather than test students through oral examinations, which were common before this movement in the education system, written examinations were given to students — the first standardized tests had emerged. 

As the concept gained popularity, programs were increasingly developed to create educational standards and tests that could measure them. Today, these exams are required to be administered by each state through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), with tests like the SAT and ACT commonly used for college admissions.

The rationale behind the ESSA mandate is that all students in the public education system will be taught according to high academic standards and that statewide standardized testing will help provide vital information about a student’s progress towards those standards to parents, educators, and administrators. In North Carolina, statewide standardized testing programs take on many forms. In high school, students are required to take EOCs for four classes: Math 1, Math 3, Biology, and English 2, with various Check-In tests given throughout the semester.

A common criticism of standardized testing is that the rigid standards it tests do not accurately assess a student’s knowledge or mastery of a subject. If all students are different, then why should they all be tested the same way? Rather than removing the need for or the effectiveness of standardized tests, student diversity actually creates the need for a standardized measure of student knowledge. 

Because all students are different, it would be impossible to measure one student’s knowledge on a subject and compare it to another’s. These tests allow students to be compared using a common metric, which informs educator and administrator decision-making.

For many students, hearing the word “standardized” before a test creates a feeling of unease. For sophomores like Meghan Russo, she and her peers struggle to see the value in these assessments.

“I think the purpose of standardized testing is to get a general consensus on how well kids have been learning and how they’re retaining the information,” Russo says. “Personally, I don’t see them this way. To me, they always seem like a big test of memory rather than knowledge. Most people I know don’t remember the test material once it’s over.”

However, the “standardized” part of standardized testing is often misunderstood. Educational standards aren’t created as a means to show students just how much they don’t know or force them to randomly memorize a curriculum. Rather, standards are guidelines used to describe the end goal of a class or course. They help hold educators accountable for reaching educational goals that aim to help students succeed.

It is the concept of standards that makes standardized tests so beneficial to students. As the name implies, a standardized test only works if a course has been taught according to standards. In other words, a teacher isn’t free to teach only what they want and leave out important parts of the curriculum. Without standards and standardized tests, there would be no effective accountability measures for educators. Students are better guaranteed a quality education when standardized tests are used — they serve as a measure of what a teacher taught.

The importance of having a way to compare students using the same metric extends beyond K-12 education and into college admissions. The ACT and the SAT are both standardized tests that are commonly used in the college admissions process. In the University of North Carolina system, students with weighted GPAs between 2.5 and 2.8 are required to submit either an ACT or SAT score. Davie High School students are required to take the ACT and may also take the SAT. 

Although some universities across the country do not require applicants to submit test scores, many do — and the reason why benefits students. While the ESSA requires every state to administer standardized tests to measure progress towards high educational standards, the standards that each state creates can vary. This creates differences in the education systems across states. What a student is required to learn in North Carolina can greatly differ from California. In the college admissions process, where it is necessary to compare students across the nation, comparison based solely on grades would be an unfair metric. The ACT and SAT allow students to show their knowledge across a variety of subjects in the same test, which can give students an advantage in the college admissions process.

Another standardized test often taken by high school students are the Advanced Placement (AP) exams. AP classes are offered at many high schools to accelerate learning and possibly give students credit for introductory-level college classes. AP exams can be applied so universally because of their nature as a standardized test. Since the curriculum is the same across each class, colleges know exactly what was taught and tested and can give credit accordingly. AP exams create a “common denominator” nationwide — otherwise, a student’s grades and classes taken might not be transferable when applying to college in another area.

At Davie High, scores from EOCs and CTE exams are a major part of a student’s grade. North Carolina requires that EOC scores be 20% of students’ final grades for the course. However, the data from standardized tests doesn’t simply stop in the gradebook. Standardized test data is used to evaluate teachers, make informed decisions for both classrooms and schools, and appears in an online report for North Carolina schools. 

For teachers, the data from their students’ standardized tests are used to evaluate their ability to teach the standards and help students show growth from previous tests. Standardized tests can also be a useful tool for educators to determine what they need to help students review or learn more in-depth. The description of the NC Check-Ins 2.0, smaller tests given throughout the course in classes that have an EOC, states that the purpose of the test is to “Provide educators, students, and stakeholders with immediate and detailed feedback on grade-level specific content standards so classroom instruction may be tailored to individual student’s needs.” These standardized tests aren’t solely meant to be a part of student grades but to be tools for growth and reform.

At a schoolwide level, standardized test scores become part of the Davie County High School Report Card, a statewide program that publishes data on student achievement and whether or not schools met their academic growth goal. The report provides transparency on whether or not certain groups met proficiency standards on various standardized tests, and compares these findings to the district and the entire state.

Despite data’s important role at the school and statewide level, it’s still an equally essential tool for individual students and their educators to make informed decisions. Whether a student performed well and showed growth or not, the data that a standardized test provides is critical for helping students succeed. Whether this is through opportunities for further learning, chances to close gaps in one’s knowledge, or to grow in certain standards, without the data from standardized testing, these opportunities wouldn’t be possible for students.