Are standards and testing hampering student comprehension?

State standards and standardized testing continuously create controversy in the world of education.  Are teachers "teaching to the test?"  Are standardized tests bias?  Are they designed to adhere to the traditional bell curve, automatically setting some students up for failure?  Are they really set in place to help fix the achievement gap?  Through standardized testing our nation has develop this ideology that only tests scores can show a students intellectual growth and capacity.   However, do these tests really show our students understanding?  This is the question that plagued Ellin Oliver Keen in her prelude to To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension.


It is no doubt that our society has become fixated with testing.  Teachers, now more than ever, are afraid to stray to far from the test and rarely ever do so.  Teaching to the test has become a very common thing and elementary and high school classes alike.  As long as students are able to remember information for a brief period of time and circle the right answer on the test we assume the student understands.  This idea could not be more opposite than that of Keen belief, and my belief as well.  Just because a student is able to "retell, answer questions, and learn new vocabulary," as Keene writes, it does not mean they understand (Keene 5).


While Keene admits that helping students truly understand, as opposed to retelling or simply answering question, can be a time consuming endeavor she points out that the extra time is worth it (Keene 15).  Teaching first grade this year, I complete realize that I myself am guilty of speeding through the day trying to get everything done.  The day is short and there is so much to cover, I myself would have a difficult time trying to experiment with Keene's ideas.  However,  I really like Keene's idea of "quality v. quantity" (Keene 13).  Education is not about how much material you fit into the day, it is the quality of what you teach.  If you rush your students through the curriculum each day, trying to fit in EVERYTHING, yet your students are struggling to truly understand, what impact have you actually had?  I don't want to be a teacher who pushed their students along, hoping that they will get good test scores in the future.  For what good is "learning for learning sake" (Keene 7).  I want to be a teacher who makes an impact and will help students become investing in education and all that it had to offer.