“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Have you ever run across this quote? Many today can relate with Albert Einstein’s sentiments. Though creative, enthusiastic educators and educational institutions abound, far too often regimented, rote-based learning best characterizes the experiences of students in our system. This is particularly evident when we consider the methods of assessment used, such as high-stakes standardized tests upon which so much rides.  As the highly politicized education reform agenda continues to be debated on a national stage, testing practices should remain a key focus of discourse.

A recent post in the Higher Education Management group on LinkedIn, “What Happens When An Adult Takes A Standardized Test” shed some interesting anecdotal insights on this provocative topic.  The post referenced The Answer Sheet blog by Valerie Strauss. She shares colleague Marion Brady’s exploration of the experience and reflections of a school board member who took a standardized test that 10th graders take in his district. The 13 year board member and veteran educator took the test in an effort to investigate long-standing concerns he had as to whether the test results truly reflected a student’s ability.

Mr. Brady shared the following email from the school board member:

“I won’t beat around the bush. The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a ‘D,’ and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

“It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate. I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities….

“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actuall y been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”

Your interest is probably piqued by now. To learn more about this story, be sure to read the follow up post, Revealed: School board member who took test. Its a thought-provoking read.

I am a life long learner and enjoy education. I have three degrees and soon hope to begin work on a doctorate. I’ve had wonderful teachers and went to great public and private schools. I hold education in the highest regard, but somewhere along the way we’ve lost sight on what good education looks like and what is most important for our students to learn. In our effort to validate how learned our students are, we are overlooking and trampling on the elements that produce the greatest results. Testing has its place in education, but if not implemented appropriately, the consequences can be pretty devastating.