As students sharpen pencils, log into portals, and pack their backpacks for a new academic year, one thing is clear: the tests are back.

Stanford University has joined a growing list of elite institutions reinstating standardized testing requirements. After a brief pandemic-era pause, universities across the country are dusting off the SAT and ACT like relics of rigor, trying to reassert the illusion of merit and academic excellence. But ask any student, teacher, or weary parent, and you’ll hear a different story. These tests don’t measure brilliance. They measure privilege. And they’re not coming back by accident. They’re returning because the myth of merit is too profitable, too entrenched, and too politically useful to let go.

Let’s stop pretending that standardized tests are designed to measure learning. Let’s stop pretending that these assessments tell us anything deep or lasting about a student’s growth, potential, or intelligence. Let’s stop pretending that the architecture of our nation’s testing regime is neutral, equitable, or even pedagogically sound.

Because the truth is this: standardized tests are not just flawed, they are engineered to fail a predictable portion of students. By design, a curve creates winners and losers. And those “losers” are too often students of color, students with disabilities, low-income students, and multilingual learners, the very students our institutions claim they want to support.

Michigan Says No

Not every institution is marching backward. The University of Michigan–Ann Arbor has decided not to reimpose testing requirements this fall. That decision is not just a policy change, it’s a signal. A sign of leadership and of courage. A refusal to let outdated, inequitable metrics define a new generation of learners. And that courage deserves applause, not side-eye.

The move matters because Michigan is a flagship public university. It sends a powerful message to other public institutions: You don’t have to fall in line with the Ivies to uphold high standards. You can stand with students, not just scores.

It also sends another message: Progress doesn’t have to be performative. It can be structural. It can be policy. And it can be sustained.

But What About K–12?

While attention has largely focused on college admissions, we can’t forget that millions of students in K–12 systems are still shackled to the testing-industrial complex. In many states, high school students are still required to pass exit exams to graduate. These tests are often poorly aligned with classroom instruction, culturally disconnected, and devoid of any real instructional value. Yet they operate like bureaucratic gatekeepers, denying diplomas to students who have otherwise passed every class and met every requirement.

In some states, students who have maintained honor roll GPAs for four years are still barred from graduating due to narrowly missed scores on high-stakes tests. We are sending young people the message that their futures hinge not on what they’ve learned or who they’ve become, but on how they perform on a single, narrow, and deeply biased instrument.

And let’s be honest—this message is not distributed equally. It lands harder in underfunded schools, in communities of color, and in families that can’t afford $150-an-hour test prep. The test is not just back. It’s back with a vengeance—and a price tag.

This isn’t rigor. This is rationing opportunity.

The System Was Never Built for Justice

Dr. Brad Johnson recently crystallized what many of us in education leadership, policy, and classrooms have known and fought against for years. In a post that has gone viral for all the right reasons, he writes:

“Even so-called criterion-referenced tests are often written with norm distributions in mind—meaning they’re designed so that about half of students will miss key questions, no matter how well they’re taught… The system doesn’t reward mastery. It monetizes failure.”

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s the fine print of how the testing industry works. It’s a system where performance is secondary to predictability. And where equity is sacrificed to keep the bell curve intact.

The Illusion of Rigor

Imagine this: you teach your students the standards. You differentiate instruction, scaffold assignments, and offer deep, engaging learning experiences. Your students grow. They thrive. But then test day comes, and the questions are written in confusing, alienating ways. A passage about a 19th-century English fox hunt shows up on a reading exam for middle schoolers in Detroit. A math problem assumes familiarity with yacht racing. A writing prompt asks students to argue against their own humanity “from both sides.”

Despite all they’ve learned, your students miss just enough questions to be labeled “basic” or “not proficient.” Not because they didn’t learn, but because the test wasn’t designed to reflect what they learned. It was designed to produce a statistical bell curve.

As I’ve long argued, and as research by education scholars like Wayne Au confirms, high-stakes testing is less about measuring learning and more about sorting. In a 2009 peer-reviewed study, Au demonstrated that test-based accountability systems distort instruction and narrow curriculum, particularly for Black, Brown, and low-income students.

A Dirty Little Secret

Dr. Johnson’s critique of so-called “criterion-referenced” tests deserves a closer look. These are tests supposedly designed to measure whether students meet a set standard. But even these are often constructed with norm-referenced principles in mind, ensuring a certain spread of scores regardless of student mastery.

This is one of the great unspoken truths of test design. Psychometricians use models like Item Response Theory to identify questions with “discriminatory power”—that is, questions that some students are statistically likely to get wrong, even if they understand the content. This helps preserve the appearance of rigor. But what it really protects is the machine that keeps sorting students—and cashing in.

Failure Is Big Business

What happens if too many students pass? The test loses its value. The system breaks. As Johnson puts it:

“If tests were truly written on grade level—without tricks, traps, or inflated complexity—and 80% of students met or exceeded the standard, testing companies would be out of business by morning.”

And he’s right. Standardized testing is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Pearson, ETS, and the College Board are not just service providers, they are gatekeepers, deeply invested in failure as a recurring revenue model. When students fail, schools pay more for remediation, retesting, data dashboards, and consultant-driven turnaround plans. And in the background, testing companies keep cashing checks. This is not about learning. It’s about monetizing failure.

Systemic Racism by Design

We cannot separate these test outcomes from the long arc of systemic racism in American education. Gloria Ladson-Billings’ concept of the “education debt” reminds us that achievement gaps are not accidents. They are the result of decades, centuries, of underfunding, segregation, and policy neglect.

Standardized tests, far from correcting these inequities, have become tools to reproduce them. Students of color are more likely to attend schools where instruction is driven by test prep, less likely to have access to arts, electives, or culturally responsive pedagogy, and more likely to face high-stakes consequences from test performance.

As I co-wrote in The Illusion of Inclusion with Keffrelyn and Anthony Brown, even when assessments appear race-neutral, they function in ways that exclude, erase, and undermine the knowledge of marginalized communities. The tests may be digital. The oppression is analog.

The Objectivity Lie

Supporters of standardized testing still cling to the notion of objectivity. But we must ask: Objective for whom? And accountable to what? Too often, testing has been used not to support students but to punish them, and their teachers. Tests have justified school closures, teacher firings, the denial of diplomas, and the defunding of entire districts. These are not just “unintended consequences.” They are the designed use cases of a system built to sort and exclude.

If tests were simply one data point among many, perhaps they could serve a limited diagnostic function. But in practice, they are often wielded like weapons. And the most vulnerable are always the first to be hit.

A Different Way Is Possible

So what would a more just assessment system look like? It would start with a different question: What do we want students to be able to do? From there, we would design performance-based assessments, portfolio reviews, collaborative projects, and other tools that honor complexity and reward creativity. We would invest in formative feedback and professional development. We would trust teachers, and listen to students.

We would build systems that reflect the values of democracy, not just efficiency. This is not some utopian fantasy. Schools and systems across the country—especially in Indigenous, arts-based, and restorative models, are already doing this. They are using rubrics, exhibitions, capstones, and collective evaluations. It’s messier than a bubble sheet. But it’s more human. And far more honest and accurate.

Back to School, Not Back to the Test

Our students are not test scores. Our teachers are not algorithms. Our schools should not be temples of compliance. As we begin a new school year, let’s choose courage over convenience. Let’s question the metrics we’ve inherited. Let’s remember that the SAT was literally birthed from eugenicist assumptions. Let’s stop measuring brilliance with a broken yardstick. Let’s go back to school—but not back to the test.

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