Reliability of Standardized Testing - Essay Example

If we take into account the basic ideology of standardized testing, it deals with providing information about performance of individual students and also provides an evaluation of the program. In short, we can say that standardized testing makes not only teachers accountable for the poor performance of the students, but also holds the administration equally accountable for the result as well. This is quite pertinent, because the administration is responsible for providing the teachers the basic facilities in order to carry out their jobs, hence the teachers cannot be made scapegoats under this system.

Hence this system does have reliability in the sense that every body involved in the education system is accountable to some extent. The reliability of standardized testing has been put under the scanner several times in the past, in fact, as early as in the summer of 1977, at the National Consortium on testing. In this consortium it was decided to "promote a wider understanding of standardized testing among educators, legislators and public at large" (p.2). At that point itself, there was a lot of criticism from a segment of educators and administrators who felt that there had to be changes made in the system.

According to Monroe (1924), the standardized tests provided "scientific" and "standard units" (p.7) for measuring the achievements of a student. These arguments are totally valid and indicate the reliability of standardized testing. However, considering there have been enormous changes in the education system, since these comments were made. If we take the current scenario into question, we have to address a host of issues in order to answer this question. There have been a number of testing methodologies that have emerged since then, and in the current scenario, we have to take these into consideration while evaluating the reliability of standardized testing.

One of the strongest proponents of standardized testing was Atkinson (2001), who had argued that for use of only standardized tests in admission process in U.S Universities, as he believed that they were quite reliable and provided were fair. He was right in the sense that standardized tests not only provide comprehensive evaluation of the performance of the student, but also strengthen the basic foundation and principles involved in teaching.There are may be varying opinions over standardized testing, but there is no doubt that standardized testing is quite effective efficient.

The reliability has often been questioned partly due to the efficiency and effectiveness of this methodology. As mentioned before standardized testing not only evaluates the performance of student, but also tests the efficacy of the teachers, administration and the school itself. In this way everybody involved in the system is accountable and that raises doubts that people involved may get desperate and adopt illegal mechanisms, so that they are not held accountable and this is the reason why the reliability of standardized testing has been questioned.

However, the opponents of standardized education system believe that the problem with accountability is that it could cause a cascading effect; in the sense that the teachers may be influenced to design the