Testsandgrades are just tools -- it's how they are used that matters most.

When I make the case that testsandgrades have no place in education, I am often met with a common rebuttal that goes something like this:

Testsandgrades are just tools. They are not inherently good or bad. It's how they are used that matters most.

This rebuttal has troubled me for sometime because deep down I have always sensed there to be something off with this reasoning, but until now, I've had a hard time articulating it.

While I have been loosely familiar with Marshall McLuhan who told us, "We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us."

But it wasn't until I read Alfie Kohn's Schooling Beyond Measure that I felt like I could put my thoughts to words:

You've heard it said that tests and other measures are, like technology, merely neutral tools, and all that matters is what we do with the information. Baloney. The measure affects that which is measured. Indeed, the fact that we chose to measure in the first place carries causal weight. His speechwriters had President George W. Bush proclaim, "Measurement is the cornerstone of learning." What they should have written was "Measurement is the cornerstone of the kind of learning that lends itself to being measured." 

One example: It's easier to score a student writer's proficiency with sentence structure than her proficiency at evoking excitement in a reader. Thus, the introduction of a scoring device like a rubric will likely lead to more emphasis on teaching mechanics. Either that, or the notion of "evocative" writing will be flattened into something that can be expressed as a numerical rating. Objectivity has a way of objectifying. Pretty soon the question of what our whole education system ought to be doing gives way to the question of which educational goals are easiest to measure.

The question isn't just how we should use our tools, like testsandgrades, rather we should be taking step back and asking should we be using these tools at all.

If we enslave education to the quantifiable, we fall victim to what some have called the McNamara Fallacy.  If we can't abandon our needless obsession with reducing learning and people to numbers, school will continue to be a place that less and less of our children will feel like they belong.

McNamara's Fallacy and Standardized Testing

I've come to realize that standardized tests serve mostly to make dreadful forms of teaching appear successful.

-Alfie Kohn

When learning is enslaved by the quantifiable, we fall victim to the McNamara Fallacy which refers to the quantifying of success while ignoring other variables - particularly variables that are inconveniently difficult to measure.

Charles Handy unloads a powerful indictment on those who subscribe to valuing only what can be measured:

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is ok as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

This kind of robotic, reduce everything to numbers, mad science has the education system so distracted, we've almost entirely lost the plot.

I'll go a step further - standardized testing is dehumanizing learning; which, if you think about it, is utter lunacy.

Sometime ago, Ric Murry left a comment on my post Bubble Sheet Season, and I think he summed up this mess nicely:

I propose the reason for all the data is that there are people who love numbers more than people. Therefore, they focus on data and not students. They seek to make teaching a scientific process instead of a artful practice; likely because they lack people skills. They are afraid to truly interact with others. They have found a home in education, where kids are no longer the focus. How can that be? 

Sad thing is, the majority of people are afraid of their math skills, so they believe that someone who can discuss numbers must be smarter, and therefore correct. Bad assumption.