How would you measure a childs competence in those areas?

I have a learning disabled son who can't add two single-digit numbers without a calculator. With a calculator he can quickly solve complex arithmetic problems, a necessary competency in his career as a chef (recipe sizing).

Every child is different. No two are alike, not even identical twins.

Standardized testing would help identify children whose learning abilities and achievements are substantially outside a "normal" range. That would help identify action that might significantly improve the child's development. Such action might positively impact the rest of that child's life. Children who are especially gifted would also be identified and their programs altered such that their gifts are developed to the maximum possible extent.

How did you find out about your child's learning disability?

Standardized testing would have blocked his progress, not enabled it.

...but you're more knowledgeable about this than I am, so I respect your opinion. That said, I find it hard to accept that standardized tests aren't useful.

It has become increasingly harder, in many cases impossible, for special education students to get modifications of any sort for the tests they are taking.

Locally, some folks are up in arms about a test given to Kindergarten students last fall. All K students were given a test on identifying letters. Sounds fairly harmless, right?

Except that the test looked a bit like a 10 square by 10 square bingo card, with upper case and lower case letters mixed in. And they had one minute to do it.

There is just so much wrong with that. Kids learn their ABCs in order (sing with me! A B C D E F G,...) Five year olds' attention spans aren't exactly ready for a one minute test.

Testing has been tied to funding and teacher evaluations. That really doesn't serve the purpose of evaluating kids. Tests have become high stake. I feel fortunate that our district does not make them high stake, but they have the luxury of doing so.

included in the standardized testing.

is attached to the learning disabled, the non-english speakers whose tests are in English, the mentally ill, the homeless, the abused...

Nobody is exempt. Nobody.

Just one example out of so, so many:

I currently have a student on his way to high school that cannot pass a standardized reading test.

Why? His visual processing disability is too severe. He can sound words out...slowly and painfully. Too slowly to make meaning out of the whole. He can understand and discuss any audio book. His vocabulary and comprehension of topics, of themes, of ideas, is above average. So is his ability to analyze, to infer, to interpret, to synthesize. There's nothing wrong with his memory or with his ability to learn information, or his thinking skills. He just can't deal well with information in visual format.

In class, he has all reading, forms, documents, and assignments downloaded in audio format so that he can hear as he tries to read along on the screen. He uses Dragon very efficiently for any writing tasks; he can't spell well enough for a standard spell-check program to recognize words he tries to write, because he can't "see" those words well enough to get enough correct for a spell-check program to come close. But he can produce long, well-developed essays with Dragon's speech-to-text function.

He's not going to get a standard high school diploma, though, because to do so he has to pass those standardized reading and writing tests without his assistive technology.

His disabilities were recognized and diagnosed before kindergarten. He's been given all the help that's out there to give. None of it rewires his brain to process visual information well enough to succeed with standard reading and writing. Yet he is highly intelligent, highly capable, and has great potential for many things, especially in an era of rapidly expanding technological advances that will allow him to function at a high level in spite of his visual processing disability.

Except that he won't get a standard high school diploma.

He still struggles through the required standardized tests without assistance every time they are required. He comes out sweating, pale, head-achy, and defeated. Every time.

Those tests aren't helping identify any helpful action. They are defeating him and demoralizing him, and nothing else.

FYI: the high-stakes standardized tests that are required by law don't identify learning disabilities. Teachers know early on...in kindergarten, or even before if there is a pre-school program, which children exhibit signs of cognitive or developmental disability; those are assessed by other kinds of tests. By the time a child starts taking those high-stakes, required by law standardized tests, whatever "action" the system has to offer is generally already in place, and would be there regardless of high-stakes testing rules. The same is true for the gifted, although that's another whole issue that is not helped by the current high-stakes tests.

that instead of standardized testing, we should strive to give every child his/her own test
that caters to his/her cultural, geographical, ethnic, learning ability, based situation?

If you can't communicate effectively, you'll have a tough time getting and holding a decent job. Employers are not going to make allowances for the differences you referenced.

One size does not fit all.

... a sword would be hanging over the teacher's head rigged to drop if only half or less of the 'students' can climb the tree.

The biggest failing, in my estimation, of the Obama administration has been its dogged devotion to George W. Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' corporatist take-over of our public education system.

Standardized Testing