[MrMon]

I don't think standardized tests to test for abstract thinking on a widespread basis are really practical, nor are they truly possible. A test for that really can't be accurately tested by multiple choice test. And essay testing really is difficult to grade consistently on a mass basis. So that type of testing is best left to a classroom teacher.

I think most people misunderstand the idea behind standardized testing, including much of the teaching community. It measures one aspect of learning well, basic factual knowledge. But that's not where knowledge ends, rather, it's where it begins, so what the standardized tests are doing is providing a floor, one that says you need to know these things AT A MINIMUM.

All this talk about kids needing to learn how to think critically and abstractly, that's great, but the kids need to know something to think about before they do that. (Technically, that's not correct, as my education profs will tell you, but I'm simplifying.) Too many teachers think that if they teach to the test and they do well, the kids know all they need to know, which is definitely not true. But you aren't going to get very far teaching them how to think critically with a brain full of mush. Give me a kids full of facts who can just recite them, I can teach him to think critically. Give me an abstract thinker who knows no facts, and you probably have a child who has gotten a high grade point, but knows nothing and resents it when you tell them so.

Ideally, you need to teach all kinds of thinking simultaneously, but too many teachers leave out the hard stuff for the fun, abstract thinking. Those teachers do a disservice to their students, but it's a widespread practice, as it's all the rage in the ed schools. Standarized testing had to be implemented because the disservice became so widespread, it was obvious the kids were learning nothing.