Testing Equals Relevance in Technology Education

The current climate in education suggests that two items are sovereign in schools: assessment and accountability. The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) required states to set up methods of assessment and accountability (NCLB, 2001). The president of the International Technology Education Association, Ken Starkman (2006) contends, “Most educators see accountability as queen and testing as king of this legislation ” ( p. 28). Now that every state has an assessment and accountability system, we must ask ourselves, where does technology education fit into these systems? As a profession we need to acknowledge that in education today testing equals relevance. Therefore, in order to be recognized as a mainstream, significant field, we should push for state standardized tests in technology education. Assessment and Accountability Background According to Linn (2000) assessment and accountability have played prominent roles in many of the education reform efforts implemented during the past 50 years. In the 1950s, testing was employed to select students for higher education and to identify students for gifted programs. By the mid-1960s test results were used as one measure to evaluate the effectiveness of Title I and other federal programs. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the minimum competency testing movement spread rapidly; 34 states instituted some sort of testing of basic skills as a graduation requirement. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the continuation and expansion of the use of standardized test results for accountability purposes