How Standardized Testing Affects Creativity in Students and Teachers

Every country in the world today is in constant competition for who can be at the top of
the charts: wheres the happiest place to live, who has the most money per capita, who has the
least amount of death. With everything else taken into account, it still seems that the highest
point of achievement in the modern era is the level of a countrys academic systems and those
involved. Education is the staple of modern culture, so much so that any culture that doesnt have
an easy access to education, Oprah Winfrey goes in and builds a school. Education is the key to
understanding the world around us now and unlocking whatever mysteries the world ahead
holds. The only problem is that no one has quite mastered a specific education process yet.
Education is a difficult thing to master. Its not a machine, its more like an art form, in that
theres not one right way to accomplish art. But much like art, education has an ultimate goal, to
educate. Although there are many ways to educate, it seems that the United States and several
other countries are falling severely behind and there isnt a clear cut reason, but the major
evidence seems to point to how the U.S. handles testing within her borders. The modern era of
education in the United States has brought a profusion of tests given to every student at almost
every level of education. Every day of schooling becomes part of a test prep session for the big
bad exam at the end of the year. It leaves students and teachers with less time to do the things
they want to do and test what works for them in terms of a learning experience, constricting the
creativity of the learning environment. In short, standardizing our education system moves
creativity to the side in hopes of creating ideal results.
Standardized testing has existed for a long time in the United States. The SAT was
actually created in 1926 and stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test. The test was utilized by college
boards to detect the readiness of the students entering. By 1930 the test consisted of a large

number of multiple choice questions and had been split into respective sections (Fletcher,
Standardized Testing.). Today the SAT, along with its counterpart ACT, are a staple in college
admittance and readiness, which is actually not a problem. The problem comes in when the tests
make a downward hike, moving to lower grades. Standardized testing in lower grades has
actually only recently come around after the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
The bill acted as a reform for the school systems and prompted that it would raise academic
proficiency through a series of high stakes tests. The No Child Left Behind Act required that
standardized testing become mandatory in all schools, requiring each state to administer annual
tests in reading and mathematics and a science test triennially. With No Child Left Behind in
action and individual state testing still practiced, students find themselves taking more than sixty
standardized tests from kindergarten to graduation (Bowman, Number of Standardized Tests).
That number doesnt even include classroom testing, advanced placement testing, or the ACT or
SAT. Its simply too high and too much. The amount of testing utilized strips away creativity
from every aspect of the educational system. The kicker comes in when the results of each test
are used to judge the quality of the school, the teachers, and the children.
Moving from the outside in the schools have a large scale impact on the creative outlets
available to a student during their tenure in the institution. The No Child Left Behind Act has had
a profound impact on the creativity of schools in ways a lot of people might not expect, through
the schools wallet. Standardized testing has become a gauge for the effectiveness of schools. If
the student performance on tests are at a major low, the school is held responsible for not being
able to teach the material proficiently to the students. This high stakes accountability comes with
a built in reward system; however, the reward only comes in the form of monetary compensation
from high student test scores. In other words, the school gets more money for student success

and is penalized when the students dont succeed in the tests. As with everything else in this
paper, the initial idea doesnt seem bad, rewarding schools for success and incentivising the
learning process for the schools is a great idea and held a lot of merit when No Child Left Behind
first came around. The problem crept in when schools became worried about losing money.
Because the fret of losing money is so massive in a school system, not just a few thousand, more
like millions, any threat to the schools pocket can spark a quick change. If the school is at all
worried that they will not perform well on the exam they begin to cut programs from the school.
As Sir Ken Robinson stated in his TED Talk, As children grow up we start to educate them
progressively from the waist up, then we focus on their heads. Plainly put what public schools
do now is teach kids how to test. Almost any public school you go to has a hierarchy of subjects
with the least amount of emphasis on the arts. This lack of emphasis stems from the same fear
that drives schools to strive for higher test scores. In any school system that has lower budgeting
the first programs to go will always be the art programs and the extra-curricular programs.
Mostly because these programs dont produce the results for the school to be deemed
successful. Essentially any program offered by the school that doesnt produce high test results
is constantly at risk of being cut at a moments notice and there isnt a reason to explain how
creativity can take a massive blow because of it. This fear also works its way inside the school,
putting a vice on the innovation and creativity that a teacher can bring to their classroom.
Teachers have an especially hard task allocating their time, skill, and own personal flare
into the classroom since standardized testing has become the norm. Several teachers have spoken
out about standardized testing and several have even taken extreme measures in doing so. As
stated in a personal interview with Matthew Mullan, an English teacher of twelve years at Blank
Senior High School, [Standardized testing] does take up too much time, my problem right now

is that I use the ACT to figure out the the grade in my class and on top of that my Freshmen also
have to take the PAARC and they also have to take my department test. Having the three is
nonsense. Although this quote isnt all encompassing, it does bring up one of the main problems
of standardized testing for teachers, time consumption. Additional testing has created a massive
problem in the structure of time placement for teachers. As stated above, students are going to
experience a minimum of sixty tests before graduation, but this wasnt always the case, in the
2000 to 2001 school year students would have taken anywhere from ten to twenty standardized
tests between kindergarten and graduation (Bowman, Number of Standardized Tests). No one
needs that kind of pressure, even kindergarten teachers are feeling the burden of time crunches,
Lynn Maragliano from Cleveland Heights stated, I used to start the year by getting to know the
children and put them at ease, but now too much time is taken right from the start. She states
right from the start because kindergarten kids in the Cleveland Heights area are made to take
twenty two tests in a single school year. Time is essential in teaching, but if teachers have to
derail a topic to go on a one month offshoot then learning truly is lost and so is the teachers
innovation to teach the way they want to teach. Teachers also suffer when the test is used as a
metric for their effectiveness. The high stakes nature of standardized testing leads a lot of
teachers to extremes, for example, Ron Maggiano, winner of the 2005 Disney Teaching Award
for innovation and creativity in the classroom and a teacher for over thirty-three years quit last
year claiming that the testing standards were suffocating and that they were no longer educating
students, but rather, teaching them to pass a test (Strauss, 11 Problems). Mr. Maggiano isnt the
only one either, a lot of good teachers who valued what they did and the job that they held have
left their jobs because the climate has shifted so much, nearly 45% of teachers have at the very
least considered leaving their profession because of standardized testing (Walker, NEA Survey).

It doesnt take a brilliant mathematician to figure out the classrooms minus creative teachers
doesnt equal greater creativity. The other end of the spectrum comes from teachers that are so
fearful that they might lose their jobs that they limit themselves into a strict system of only
teaching the test and nothing but the test. A system that not only ensures the teacher wont have a
large piece of valuable input. This system also pretty much guarantees that they will never find
what works for them and what brings their students the same level of joy that learning brought
them; neither extreme results in any added innovation and neither offer the same creativity that
would come from a teacher building their own curriculum.
No matter how badly the teacher wants to keep their job and no matter how badly the
school system desires to earn as much money as possible, the real victims of standardized testing
are those who are tasked with taking the exams: the students. Losing out on art programs and
extracurricular activities combined with a lack of teaching initiative are huge factors in making
up the drudgery that students go through on a daily basis. Art programs, such as music and art,
are a truly significant part of early education. Art and music are outlets of creativity that younger
kids, as well as older kids, can utilize to express themselves in what has seemingly become a sea
of test preparation in their learning environment. Extracurricular activities offer students the
same ability to express themselves, through a different medium, but still giving them the chance
to stretch their legs and rest their brain. Whether the student is an athlete or an artist, both of
these programs give the student time to break away from their reality, both offer students a
gateway to something incredible that they can master if they want, but because these programs
dont bring test results in, the students are forced to do without, wasting potential they may not
have even known they had.

The depravity, sadly, doesnt stop outside the classroom. Students also suffer when their
classroom situation reaches the previously mentioned extremes. Whether the good teachers quit
or the scared teachers teach the test, the student loses. Students miss out on the opportunity to
have the same education that their parents or their teachers were given and they also miss out on
the opportunity to see how learning can be a fun experience. This lack of classroom optimism
also carries a large amount of stress for students. Because testing is used as a metric for schools
and teachers, a lot of weight is put on the shoulders of the students. Teachers pressuring students
has resulted in a rampant increase in the levels of student test anxiety (Embse, Test Anxiety).
High levels of stress are no good for any person, but especially not for a high school student who
is also struggling with homework, hormones, and a social life. High stress levels arent the only
malaise that high stakes testing brings to students. Testing also creates a one size fits all course
outline. A system that is designed for everyone, as long as that person is of average intelligence
for their grade and age group. A one size fits all curriculum just doesnt work because students
arent one size fits all, every student learns and takes in information differently. Making the
curriculum suitable for everyone performs an injustice to students who cant learn the way the
government wants them too. This system is pushing out people who are able to do what they are
told and spit out information that has no meaning to them, College Professors, as Sir Ken
Robinson would say. The one size fits all ideal is a good system to strive for but all it
accomplishes now is producing students that can do exactly as theyre instructed and
disregarding everyone else. The student becomes a product of a system that doesnt care about
their aspirations or their goals, this system is only interested in who can fill in the most correct
bubbles.

The average student spends roughly seven hours a day, every day, for a one-hundred and
eighty day school year. From kindergarten through graduation, a student will spend around
16,380 hours in a learning environment. Students almost never have the same teachers year after
year, but that shouldnt stop the teacher from bonding with the students and making their bit in
that chunk of time matter. It shouldnt stop a teacher from filling a child's mind with new ways of
thinking and new levels of innovation in the classroom, not just waste time by filling a students
head with test answers because the teacher is afraid a few bad test scores. Creativity is a higher
brain function and should be treated as such, education and literacy are important factors in
education, obviously, but creative outlets offer students an entirely different spin on an education
system. Allowing the student to have fun while learning and create something of their own.
Standardized testing isnt inherently a bad thing, testing in general isnt a bad thing, but the way
testing is handled now is a problem that our society needs to work to fix. Testing has become a
means to an end and it seems that weve really lost sight of what make learning one of the
greatest hobbies a person can have.

Works Cited
Fletcher, Dan. "A Brief History of Standardized Testing." Time. Time Inc., 11 Dec. 2009. Web.
30 Mar. 2015.

Kohn, Alfie. "The Case Against Standardized Testing." Partnership for Smarter Schools. 1 Jan.
2000. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

Mullan, Matthew. Personal Interview. 3 Mar. 2015.

Strauss, Valerie. "11 Problems Created by the Standardized Testing Obsession." Washington
Post. The Washington Post, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

Walker, Tim. "NEA Survey: Nearly Half Of Teachers Consider Leaving Profession Due to
Standardized Testing - NEA Today." NEA Today. National Education Association, 2 Nov. 2014.
Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

Zalan, Kira. "The Problem With Standardized Tests." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 5
July 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.