By Rann Miller
One of the pillars of the decades-long “reform” movement that’s dominated national education policy is showing signs of cracking up, as states and school districts increasingly are reducing the number of tests, backing off high-stakes consequences associated with these examines, and recognizing scores are not to be used as sole indicators of genuine learning.
Some standardized testing is still a requirement in the federal law Every Student Succeeds Act, but a few states are taking baby steps toward taking advantage of flexibilities in the law that allow for alternative assessments. Leaders of national civil rights groups have lamented the lighter hand being applied to the demands for testing, but as a Black educator, I welcome the relief because the tests themselves are racist.
The first time I took the SAT, I didn’t do so well. I believe I scored 850 out of 1600. To be transparent, I was not the greatest standardized test taker. However, after taking a prep class, I scored higher. While I didn’t crack a thousand, I did score an additional one hundred points. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to one of those one-to-two thousand dollar test prep workshops. But the workshops I attended taught me that taking the SAT was more about knowing how to answer questions rather than knowing a bunch of information. I always knew that once I got to college, I would “succeed.”
By succeed, I mean do well in my classes, adjust to the added level of autonomy, develop a career trajectory and of course, earn my degree. I did those things and more; I established friendships, I networked and I developed a habit of reading and learning that I maintain to this day. None of that was dependent on my SAT score. I also learned something else in college.
The SAT was invented by Carl Brigham, a eugenicist and a racist, who said that African-Americans were on the low end of the racial, ethnic, and/or cultural spectrum. Thankfully, many undergraduate schools have abandoned the SAT and other standardized tests to predict student success at the higher education level. Because of it, many of these schools report their applicant pools and enrolled classes have become more diverse without any loss in academic quality. It would be equally wonderful if education policymakers did the same thing when assessing student success at the K-12 level. Yet we have testing that may or may not achieve the desired result; depending on who you ask.
Under the guise of examining aptitude, standardized tests produce a racial hierarchy based on a rigged scoring system. The obvious racial hierarchy resulting from the scores prompted the College Board to institute an “adversity score” to account for the anti-Black nature of the test, which they abandoned after backlash.
That educational institutions use these tests as gateways to access educational opportunities is also racist policy. In many states, students must pass a standardized test in order to graduate from high school, and many higher education institutions will not accept students without having taken the SAT or ACT. Also, many scholarships offered by colleges and universities are attached to a student’s SAT score. So the only way Black students can secure a seat in college is to take a prep course that they may or may not be able to afford just to take a test that is anti-Black by design? And education reformers say Black students need to show more grit in schools…but I digress.
When implemented in K-12 schools, we find what educators and policymakers refer to as achievement gaps. An achievement gap means there is a disparity in academic performance between groups. The gap is measured by statistical data; test scores being chief among them. The most prominent achievement gap is between Black students and white students. Belief in this gap only perpetuates an age old racist idea—Black intellectual inferiority. Often with Black students on the lower end of the racial intelligence hierarchy as well as Latinx students, while white and Asian students are at the top.
When discussing Black student academic “underachievement,” I commonly hear folks ask amongst themselves how to help support Black students close the gap. While educators may mean well, this deficit approach to Black students sees through the lens of a racist idea. What educators should ask is why do we believe that Black students are low achieving and what are we doing that reinforces that belief?
In New Jersey during the 2017-18 school year, students took the PARCC exams developed by Pearson Publishing; a company that whitewashed slavery in its textbooks, but I digress. According to the NJ Department of Education, Black students made up the lowest percentage of proficient students in both math and language arts when compared across racial lines.
*Data retrieved from the NJ Department of Education 2017-2018 School Performance Reports
Of school districts who reported PARCC scores for Black students, in roughly 70% of those school districts Black students had the lowest percentage of proficiency in both language arts and math. In roughly 90% of those districts who reported Black student scores, Black students were either the lowest or second lowest percentage of proficient students in both language arts and math. While we may not have scores reported for Blacks students from the remainder of the state’s school districts, we can say that a racial hierarchy is established among those schools reporting scores where Black students are the lowest performing students. These scores could, and does, reaffirm the racist idea of Black intellectual inferiority.
However, if we take into account another variable, such as student suspensions, we’ll gain insight on how schools perpetuate racism and more specifically anti-Blackness. Nationally, Black students are disproportionately disciplined across racial lines. Black students are suspended, expelled, and referred to law enforcement more often than any other racial group of students.
*Data retrieved from the NJ Department of Education 2017-2018 School Performance Reports
*Data retrieved from the NJ Department of Education 2017-2018 School Performance Reports
During the 2017-18 school year, according to the NJ Department of Education, we can find that there is a trend established between Black student proficiency percentages in language arts and math within school districts and school district suspension rates. As the proficient rates of Black students decreased in language arts and math, the suspension rates for those school districts increased.
Many student suspensions are due to zero-tolerance policies. These are racist policies as well because they disproportionately impact Black and Latinx students. One could argue that suspended students were at fault for their suspension due to their behavior. This is an argument of Betsy DeVos, who used racial pseudoscience, based on racist ideas, to eliminate the Obama era discipline guidelines; designed to reduce the disproportionate disciplining of Black students.
Students removed from the classrooms due to suspensions, expulsions, or law enforcement referrals aren’t lower achievers. Students who have been absent on the days tests were administered—aren’t lower achievers.
One might argue that my problem with standardized testing stems from disliking that Black students under perform when compared across racial groups. They may contend the tests are proof Black students, based on years of data, are low performing academically and, therefore, justify interventions to alleviate the test score deficiencies—or even justify the tests themselves.
Yet that is the danger these tests can produce—validation of racist ideas that either establish or reinforce the need for racist policies in schools. Black students don’t need correcting. What needs correcting are the conditions with which Black children are educated, and that shouldn’t depend on test results. The way we instruct, discipline and assess Black students needs a complete overhaul. Whether or not that happens depends on whether or not our schools continue to be anti-Black.
Readings Suggested:
“How to be an Antiracist,” Dr. Ibram Kendi (2019)
“What’s Race Got To Do With It?: How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality,” Bree Picower & Edwin Mayorga
“We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom,” Dr. Bettina L. Love (2019)
Rann Miller directs a 21st Century Community Learning Center, a federally funded after-school program located in southern New Jersey — one of 63 statewide. He spent 6 years teaching in charter schools in Camden, New Jersey. He is the creator, writer and editor of the Official Urban Education Mixtape Blog. His writing on race and urban education has appeared in Education Week, Hechinger Report, and the Progressive, where he is an education fellow. Follow him on Twitter:@UrbanEdDJ and on Instagram: @urbanedmixtape
