Being a high school student in Northern Virginia, there is one aspect of my school life that has remained constant throughout my years of education: Standards of Learning exams, also known as SOLs.
Unlike collegiate entrance exams, the SOLs want test takers to do well. There are not any answer choices trying to trick students, nor is there a time limit forcing students to rush through the exam.
Instead, the questions are fairly straightforward, rarely requiring the students to truly think about the question at all. However, this is the flaw in the SOL system, as well as the standardized test system as a whole: It does not test understanding of the material.
For instance, we can readily summon facts from lessons drilled into us years ago: Columbus sailed on the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The Civil War ended in 1865. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But does knowing these facts reflect mastery of important concepts and skills? Of course not.
Standardized exams do not fully and accurately measure student achievement or understanding. Instead, results are mainly reflective of one thing: a student’s household income.
While income contributes to families being able to afford preparatory classes or tutoring sessions for students, the gaps between rich and poor students are far larger than what could be produced by test prep alone. If this were the case, the solution would be simple - provide everyone with test prep.
But the phenomenon is caused by a confluence of factors, making it all the more difficult to remove income gaps from standardized tests. Family wealth allows for parents to locate in neighborhoods with better schools, or invest in private schools. Parents who are wealthy tend to be well-educated themselves, and will instill the importance of school and learning in their children.
Besides, if a student has to get a job to help support their family or lives in a low-income or crime-ridden neighborhood, odds are school, grades, and test scores will not be among their top priorities.
And SOLs are not the only tests students have to worry about - there is also the SAT, SAT subject tests, the ACT, and the list only continues.
These exams perpetuate racial inequality, as white students have historically outperformed those of a minority background, including African Americans and Hispanics. They serve as an indicator of oppression, reminding upper classes of their superiority and lower of their inferiorness. The tests are misused by the schools, states, and country to judge, blame, and ostracize poor or underfunded schools.
Including my own.
Again, unlike what I assume to be most Odyssey writers, I am a high school student. Not only this, I am a student in one of the most underfunded schools in my county, but also one of the most diverse schools in the country. Here, 80 percent of students come from minority backgrounds, and nearly 64 percent of students qualify for free or reduced waivers.
And every year, my school runs the risk of losing its accreditation status, caused by consistently having the lowest SOL scores across the county.
This poor testing performance affects much more than our school’s accreditation rating. Though student apathy is understandable in certain scenarios, our substandard test scores create a mindset of disappointment too embedded in our mentality to be ignored.
Even so, though students commonly complain about standardized tests, we also have the habit of giving a certain meaning to them. We constantly compare scores, and in doing so secretly hope to have outperformed all others, thinking that a good score makes us better people, and better than those who did poorly.
But standardized test scores do not correlate to how successful students will be in their lives. They are not reflective of their true intelligence.
And above all, to all those who have ever taken a standardized exam, your score does not define you - regardless of how well or poorly you did.
