Measures of Success Don’t Come in One-Size-Fits-All : Education: Standardized tests only discourage the children who most need help; more effective means are available.

The congressionally appointed National Council on Education Standards and Testing has recommended voluntary national curriculum standards and a national testing program for America’s schoolchildren. The widespread support for setting nationwide standards reflects a justified concern for the shortcomings of our educational system and the decline of our economic competitiveness. But in seeking to solve one problem, we risk adding to another. A system devised to stimulate school reform must not put at greater risk those most in need of a better education.

Minorities and poor children who attend overcrowded and underfunded schools--along with students with learning disabilities, (5% of the school-age population according to Education Department figures)--all stand to suffer unless educators devise equitable ways to measure achievement and use test results as a guide to improve instruction rather than as a means to categorize and separate students.

Standardized, multiple-choice testing has too often been used to shunt schoolchildren onto different academic tracks, with those on the lower tracks at greater risk of failure. Yet there is evidence that these tests can be unreliable in predicting relative abilities and can so discourage students who get low scores that they stop trying or drop out of school altogether.

Studies show, for example, that placing students in lower-ability classes undermines their self-esteem and prevents them from realizing their learning potential because they are given less-challenging courses.

The National Council wisely rejected the notion of a single national exam and instead called on states to develop fairer assessment methods, ones that evaluate students’ analytical and problem-solving skills through a broader range of tests.

But the history of testing is full of examples of tests designed for one purpose being misused for another. If results from the new exams serve to label students and limit their educational opportunities, we will have made no progress in improving our schools. If, on the other hand, we use tests to promote the development of students’ skills and talents, testing can help raise the level of achievement.

Young people excluded from the mainstream do not disappear. They swell the ranks of dropouts--a group, according to recent statistics, that uses drugs twice as frequently as high school graduates, is 50% more likely to be on welfare and makes up 80% of our prison population. They add to the astounding number of functional illiterates--25 million to 30 million people, or more than 1 in 10 Americans.

For an educational system to be healthy there must be a commitment to encouraging the best efforts of all teachers and students. Without that commitment, the system crumbles.

In its continuing study of instructional patterns in urban schools, the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College is finding that the more minorities in a school the more likely its teachers are to emphasize lower-order skills through rote learning. Many educators believe that this difference is largely responsible for the disparities between white and minority students. Setting higher standards willbring positive change only if we make sure that schools in poor neighborhoods have the resources to meet these standards and that inequities in curriculum and teaching are eliminated.

Most important, testing is not a panacea. The problems in our schools have roots in the broader ills that plague this country, where 500,000 children suffer from malnutrition and 12.6 million live below the poverty line. In many big-city neighborhoods, murder has become the leading cause of death among youths under 16. Schools alone cannot change this reality, but they should become avenues to opportunity and self-esteem.

In our eagerness to reinvigorate education we must be especially careful how we define success. The underachieving student should not be viewed as a liability that lowers a school’s ranking, but rather as a challenge for our schools to fulfill their true mission.

Several states, including California, New York, Connecticut and Vermont, have begun to experiment with more genuine and comprehensive forms of assessment that include research projects and the use of student portfolios. These efforts should be encouraged so that policy-makers can learn which changes work best before imposing new exams.

There are no quick fixes. If devising equitable and effective means of instruction and assessment takes more time, then we must take that time rather than rush toward a solution that might accelerate the progress of a few while discriminating against many.