School districts continue to purchase high-cost commercialized tests that depersonalize teaching, stigmatize children and schools as failing, and build public distrust.

Assessment should inform educators and parents about where children are academically and behaviorally, but it doesn’t appear to improve learning.

Current tests appear to primarily be used to collect data, invading a child’s and family’s privacy. Such tests often stigmatize children as failing, and there are so many tests.

Aren’t there less costly methods that help teachers and parents understand how a child is doing that don’t share a child’s personal information, tests that lift children instead of disparaging them?

Consider the first sentence of this San Diego Union-Tribune, typical of school reporting: Unified finds literacy gaps in kindergarten and middle school:

Many San Diego Unified kindergartners are already arriving at school behind grade level in reading, and reading scores take a hit when students reach middle school, district testing data show.

How can kindergartners be behind when they haven’t started formal schooling? It isn’t news that poorer students need better resources and support.

What if, instead of so much testing, funding could go towards other resources and activities that teachers can use for instruction or hiring more professional teachers?

The Education Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in England, recently shared a study showing little proof that reading tests, the screening reliant on phonics, improve children’s reading.

Consider the two tests used in San Diego. Again, from the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The district’s own internal literacy tests, the FastBridge and i-Ready, suggest that students overall are generally scoring at or above standard. But there are large gaps between students overall and so-called “spotlight” students, or the 15% to 20% of students at each school who are the furthest from meeting grade level.

FastBridge 

FastBridge, published by Illuminate Education and used since 2005, assesses reading, math, and social-emotional learning. It includes universal online screening, which collects various data. According to Illuminate Education, FastBridge administered more than 27 million assessments in 49 states during the 2020-2021 school year.

Assessments can cost struggling school systems a lot. The Saint Paul school district faced $8 million in budget cuts in 2017, contributing to $32 million in cuts over several years. Still, the district had to continue assessments, so it switched from Pearson AIMSweb and NWEA MAP to FastBridge.

FastBridge tests appear to cost $7.50 per student. San Diego has over 121,000 students, and teachers must attend costly training sessions.

Like most universal online assessments, FastBridge promises a child’s records and information are secure. However, data privacy is always a concern and surrounds how they collect and store data (there’s so much information). Who has access? Can vendors and third parties obtain a student’s personal information?

Universal online assessment companies cite the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements. Still, it’s commonly known that FERPA weakened significantly under the Obama administration, leaving troubling loopholes.

i-Ready

San Diego doesn’t only have testing from FastBridge but testing from i-Ready!

Many parents dislike i-Ready, yet school districts still purchase it. Like FastBridge, i-Ready has been in classrooms for years.

The cost of i-Ready is $30 per student for each subject, and teachers must also undergo costly training. It isn’t easy to find out how much money i-Ready has made.

Common Sense Education includes 58 reviews that are mostly negative about i-Ready.

I wrote a review of i-Ready, The Murkey World of i-Ready, Grading, and Online Data and concerns, including privacy concerns.

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To summarize, assessment stigmatization leads to students as young as kindergarten being described to the public as failing before they’ve had a chance to learn. This is often based on various expensive assessments that collect personal data, raising privacy concerns.

Can’t teachers use assessments and observations without placing student information online or constantly sharing it with outsiders? Wouldn’t this reduce costs and allow districts to fund other better school initiatives that lift students?

Americans don’t need to accept these assessment results as sacred. They should question school districts’ choosing commercialized assessment programs. Ask if the assessments are necessary, or can teachers observe and privately assess children and share results with parents according to the student’s academic and behavioral needs. Well-prepared teachers understand how to do this.

If school district officials are against this, can’t they at least reduce the amount of testing? School districts and states should review these corporate-sponsored assessment programs to determine if they’re worth the cost and whether they’re stigmatizing children and public schools unnecessarily.