How will claims of racial bias in testing in public schools fare in the midst of ethnic students making great achievements?

The young lady has spoken with words of wisdom, well thought out too, she doesn't see herself as a number on someones sheet, but someone that can make a difference. Have a great day sister Phyllis.

When looking at education, there's a lot that people don't understand, especially if they've never taught in the classroom. As a teacher that has taught in both public and private schools, I offer these observations. These standardized tests that are put out by these companies are inherently unfair to those that are underprivileged. When you look at math sections in standardized testing, you see a lot of word problems. So, for someone that is an ESOL student, they're at a disadvantage. Socioeconomic status is a huge disadvantage because some of the ways these questions are worded don't relate to those disadvantaged students.

Add in the fact that the companies that get paid millions of dollars to create these tests for school systems, are not the same companies that are creating the curriculum, and you have a real problem. The teaching isn't lining up with what they're being tested on. But since teachers have no idea what concepts are going to be on the test, it's really a best guess. For those who think standardized tests are a good thing, you're not living in the reality of the issues that causes. Those same standardized tests are determining how much teachers get paid and if they'll continue to have a job, meanwhile ignoring a lot of factors as it relates to the students. Those factors include being in a single-parent household, not having enough food to eat, and other issues a child faces. There is so much going on in a child's life that affects their ability to test well, and standardized tests can't measure that.

The best thing that can be done is getting rid of standardized tests. Let the teachers teach. It's okay that we can't compare a student from inner-city New York to a student from rural Alabama. But, we live in a society that likes to compare apples to oranges, and this is where you get the problems we face.

One has to look at large numbers when examining things like the effect of racial or other bias in standardized testing. The presence of individuals who do well does not negate the existence of bias. There will always be a distribution curve of results with outliers at both ends.