Response to "Leveling the Playing Field: How to Make Standardized Test Preparation Accessible to All Students"

I always have mixed emotions when I hear about "test preparation."  On one hand, I agree that it's important that we assess our students to confirm that they have learned new material and have improved their skills over time.  On the other hand, I feel deeply concerned that our society places so much emphasis on how well our students perform on one single standardized test per academic area per year.  All educators are aware that one small snapshot, such as a single standardized test, cannot possibly hope to give a complete overview of what a particular student has learned.  And yet we are in constant pursuit of that elusive test preparation tool that will help to "level the playing field."


Now, I will say that that Andrea Alexander, the author of this article, does give two very good test prep suggestions:  "Encourage Predictive Reading Habits," and "Build Good Vocabularies."  These are valuable teaching practices whether you are preparing for a standardized test or not.  But Aexander's third strategy, "Take Advantage of All the Resources Offered by the Internet," seems too artificial to be considered an all-round good classroom strategy.  To me, this is an example of "teaching to the test."  According to Alexander, "By adding a few simple approaches into their lesson plans and exploring developments in online standardized test prep, such as practice questions, video tutorials, and forums, teachers can integrate the skills that help students add points to their scores into the classroom and make test preparation attainable for any student with an internet connection."  All this for a $100 to $300 membership!  I'm not sure why, but I feel almost offended by Alexander's suggestion that students should be encouraged to pay a membership fee in order to access resources promising to help them "...add points to their scores..."  


How can we make people see that the results of a single test do not always reveal a true picture of student learning, but rather encourage students, parents, and teachers to employ artificial methods in order to achieve higher scores?

The complete article, "Leveling the PLaying Field:  How to Make Standardized Test Preparations Accessible to All Students," posted July 6, 2011 by Andrea Alexander, can be viewed at:  http://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-to-make-standardized-test-prep-available-to-all-students