At scatterplot, Zach Griffen situates COVID-driven suspensions of standardized testing in the longer history of testing and education. He concludes:
At every level of the U.S. education system, standardized testing plays a prominent role in organizational decision-making in ways that affect both diversity and status, and in many cases also affect the content of education (only sometimes by design). There are huge economies built up around nearly every individual test that involve tutoring, prep textbooks, and proctoring. To be sure, the coronavirus will be (indeed, already is) a catastrophe for education. Jobs will be lost, inequalities will be exacerbated in new and frightening ways, and learning will suffer. But we can also use this as an opportunity to think about and prepare for education’s future and our role in it: to reflect on what should change or stay the same, which forms of assessment we need and which we don’t. To ask ourselves: at this point in time, in the midst of a pandemic and facing an uncertain economic future, what is the purpose of education, and how should we measure our success in achieving that purpose? These are questions that academics are going to be asked a lot going forward. We should probably get started on our test prep.