Grodsky, Warren, and Felts argue that tests don’t necessarily create more social stratification. Instead, they mostly seem to reflect the academic advantages that go with socioeconomic privilege among American kids. But, of course, that’s evidence that despite Horace Mann’s hopes for standardized tests, equal opportunity for all children still hasn’t become reality.

In 1798, the US Government anticipated war with France and sought to purchase muskets. Jefferson sought out Whitney to make up for the patent fiasco and shared with him the idea that interchangeable parts could be used to manufacture muskets. The first American College Testing (ACT) exams were administered in 1959, with sections on math, English, social studies, and natural science. The standardized test became widely accepted in college admissions across the country.

The College Board expanded SAT testing, and the PSAT for younger students started to be used in determining winners of the prestigious National Merit Scholarships. The use of standardized testing grew ever more widespread when the College Board, which designed tests for college placement, expanded its exams to cover a half dozen subjects. The tests included essay questions, composition, and foreign language translation. The National Education Association, which represented public school teachers, threw its support behind standardized testing. Testing methods were improving, making results more useful, and the findings were helpful in establishing and administering well-run schools.

Standardized testing has since become a widely used tool in education, with many states and countries implementing standardized tests to measure student achievement and hold schools accountable for academic progress. In conclusion, standardized testing has a long history that can be traced back to ancient civilizations. The modern standardized testing as we know it today was created in the late 19th and early 20th century, James Carter, National Education Association and College Entrance Examination Board and Carl Brigham were key figures in its development.

The testing was used to place students—in nearly all elementary schools and most high schools in urban areas—in groups of like abilities and channel them along predetermined educational paths. Progressive educators worried that reliance on standardized testing rewarded conformity and left little room for creativity and independent thinking in the nation’s classrooms. Designed typically by white educators, they were administered to children of varied cultures, races, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds. Nonetheless, standardized testing has endured as a widely used means to measure abilities and performance. In 1845, Mann had members of his Board of Education prepare and administer written exams to students in the Boston schools that the local schoolmasters had not seen. The examiners then used the test results to harshly criticize the teachers and the quality of education students were receiving.

Standardized testing becomes the one and only measure used for achievement

• The creation of state tests can involve collaboration between state education departments, test developers, and educators.
• In the early 20th century, debates about how best to assess students’ academic knowledge were common among educators and psychologists alike.
• Currently, the SAT is intended to indicate a student’s readiness for college attendance.
• In response to No Child Left Behind, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Barack Obama took a more flexible and nuanced approach to student testing.
• French psychologist Alfred Binet and collaborator Theodore Simon created the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale at the behest of the French government, which was seeking tests to identify students needing remedial studies.

Children’s abilities could be identified and assessed efficiently, schools could organize classes and curriculums, and the military benefited by finding the best soldiers with officer potential. Psychologists who developed the tests, like Alfred Binet of France and Lewis Terman of the United States, made advances in understanding how people think and learn. We looked at their initial purpose, who invented school tests, and a little about how they were developed, why they were created, and who they were created by. The first standardized test was created by Horace Mann, who developed what he called “Intelligence Tests” to identify children with learning disabilities. The first school test was given in the mid-nineteenth century in Massachusetts schools.

The concept of interchangeability was crucial to the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and has become an important element of some modern manufacturing but is missing from other important industries. At about the same time, across the ocean, Britain, with its Royal Navy ruling the seas, was having supply issues with blocks and pulleys. These were the wooden contraptions used with ropes to raise and lower canvas sails. Up to the 1800’s they were made by hand; resulting in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, and taking quite a bit of time. But as the Napoleonic Wars drove a huge increase in demand for ships, and pulleys, the British Admiralty sought better solutions.

The Origins of Standardized Testing

It was administered to all students in Massachusetts who were between the ages of 11 and 13 years old (though it didn’t take into account their grade level). Schools started standardized testing in the late 1800s when Horace Mann was Secretary of Education for the State of Massachusetts. It also made it easier for teachers because they didn’t have to worry about setting up an entire classroom just for one assessment. He’s known worldwide as an the person who introduced​ standardized American educational reformer and is credited with the invention of the modern school system.

He developed a system called “unit testing” that would allow schools across the state to compare students’ progress and determine how well each school was performing. Note the odd assumption here that you need a test to confirm what the teacher already knows. The tests were important because the neurologists kept getting it wrong, merely by plying their trade and using their scientific methods. Historian Mark Garrison asks, “If one knows who the top and bottom students are, who cares if the neurologists can tell?

Late 19th and early 20th centuries: dissemination throughout manufacturing

• In 1968 the Colombian Institute for the Evaluation of Education (ICFES) was born to regulate higher education.
• Standardized tests do not need to be high-stakes tests, time-limited tests, multiple-choice tests, academic tests, or tests given to large numbers of test takers.
• Within just a few years, the so-called Iowa tests were available and in use around the country.
• Of course, the argument had to run in the opposite direction when applied to women who, from the beginning, showed no statistical difference from men in IQ testing.

Upon leaving high school students present the “Saber 11” that allows them to enter different universities in the country. Students studying at home can take this exam to graduate from high school and get their degree certificate and diploma. Historians differ over the question of whether Hall or North made the crucial improvement. Despite the widespread use of the Cotton Gin, patent disputes (caused by Thomas Jefferson’s failure to timely process the patents) left Whitney broke.

In the early years of public education, there was no formal assessment system. He developed a system that involved grading each student on their performance on multiple choice questions related to specific topics. Today, the SAT contains two subtests reading, and math each with several sections. The test utilizes some of the foundational concepts developed in imperial China for test security.

Use of standardized testing adopted as part of national education plan

The test was intended to evaluate the knowledge and abilities of students in the New England area. Teaching to the test is a process of deliberately narrowing instruction to focus only on the material that will be measured on the test. For example, if the teacher knows that an upcoming history test will not include any questions about the history of music or art, then the teacher could “teach to the test” by skipping the material in the textbook about music and art. Critics also charge that standardized tests encourage “teaching to the test” at the expense of creativity and in-depth coverage of subjects not on the test. However, some critics object to standardized tests not because they object to giving students the same test under the reasonably similar conditions and grading the responses the same way, because they object to the type of material that is typically tested by schools. To use the driving test example, a critic might say that it is unnecessary to know whether the driving student can handle parallel parking.

1875: Two fundamental shifts in educational goals and methodology occur

Comparing against others makes norm-referenced standardized tests useful for admissions purposes in higher education, where a school is trying to compare students from across the nation or across the world. The standardization ensures that all of the students are being tested equally, and the norm-referencing identifies which are better or worse. Examples of such international benchmark tests include the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

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History

Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers, and graded in the same manner for everyone, is a standardized test. Standardized tests do not need to be high-stakes tests, time-limited tests, multiple-choice tests, academic tests, or tests given to large numbers of test takers. Standardized tests can take various forms, including written, oral, or practical test.