When there's a state-mandated standardized test in, say, science, administration immediately jumps on it and says, "Ok! Now we know what our science tests should look like!" and in turn, science teachers must all toe the line, give tests that look just like the state standardized test, and teach to those tests. If Mr. A's students score lower than Mrs. B's students (and administration looks very closely at these test results), [sarcasm] then Mrs. B must be the better teacher! [/sarcasm]

Students "pass" their own class's chapter tests, partly due to teachers just passing them for the reasons previously explained, but also partly because they've been prepped and groomed specifically to pass the test.

Students "pass" the state-wide standardized tests partly because that's what they've been prepped for, and partly because of the nature of standardized testing. Think about it: if everyone does poorly on a state-wide standardized test, the state administrators making the test assume they've made it too difficult, and so water it down. Makes sense also because they want their state to compare favorably with other states. But regardless, what they want is that bell curve. They want it bad. They want to point to the districts on the low side of the bell curve, tell them to improve, and believe they've done something useful.

In turn, local districts want their own bell curves. They want to point to teachers with students on the low side of that bell curve, eliminate them (or otherwise reprimand them), and believe that they've done something useful.

Then net result of all this for the students is that they become pretty good at passing standardized tests but not terribly good at critical thinking. In class, teachers will hear over and over again from students, "will this be on the test?". The students crave bytes of information that sound like a multiple choice question with the answer attached, because that's the sort of thing that leads to success on tests.

So the chapter tests aren't standardized.

As I said, "standardized tests" and "race to the bottom" are incompatible.

Perhaps the current standardized tests are a poor measure of performance. On this matter, I can't comment without seeing the tests. From what you describe, they sound easy to game. If that is the case, then fix the tests.

I can't see any reason why standardized tests would be worse than non-standardized ones. Due to economies of scale (more data, you can hire a statistician to help, and test designers have time to work on i) and a decent selection process (don't put the worst teachers in charge of designing the test), I see compelling reasons why standardized tests would be better than the average individualized test.

Additionally, teachers do not have the ability to "race to the bottom". Perhaps the floor set by the tests is too low, but eliminating the floor entirely won't fix that.

The state standardized tests are pretty long, but not long enough to make all your tests from. Teachers have to give tests every few weeks (partly because students will forget things after too long, but also because the administration demands assessments, assessments, and more assessments). So what happens is, some chapter tests are standardized. The students do ok on these, since they've been prepped over and over for them. However, teachers need to make their own tests too, of course, and these were the ones I was originally referring to (where, if you require critical thinking, too many students fail).

> Perhaps the current standardized tests are a poor measure of performance.

They are a good measure of how well students perform on standardized tests.

> I can't see any reason why standardized tests would be worse than non-standardized ones.

Good teachers know how to ask good questions. Sometimes those questions change depending upon the students, any extra/different material covered in class, and so on. Regardless, good teachers can ask students to perform critical thinking and can tell if the student can really do it or not -- but it takes time. Administrators want lots of assessments. So many that good teachers will drown under all the grading if they are making students do real critical thinking and providing detailed assessments of it all.

> Additionally, teachers do not have the ability to "race to the bottom".

The forces in place now are resulting in bad patterns. Patterns like good teachers leaving, and the only ones staying are the ones willing to play the game and do all the assessments. "Race to the bottom" means teachers becoming robots who

* cover the required material ("electricity is movement of electrons!"),

* assign homework on it ("what is electricity?"),

* quiz on it ("is electricity, a. movement of protons, b. movement of neutrons, c..."),

* review it ("does everyone remember what electricity is?")

* test on it ("what is electricity? a. movement of electrons b. ..."),

then move on to the next topic. That's what standardized testing gets you and why it's a race to the bottom: find teachers who can shovel the most of that to the most students in the shortest amount of time and get the highest scores.

The net result on teaching staff is that the ones who teach critical thinking skills eventually tend to get washed out of the system. Teaching critical thinking skills is harder, the skill is harder for students to acquire (they have to work for it!), it takes more time, assessment is less cut and dried, and there's less payback visible on those standardized tests.