Why State Testing Doesn’t Tell the Full Story

Every spring, students across the country sit down for state standardized tests. For many families and teachers, these scores are treated like a final judgment: Are they on grade level? Are they behind? Are they “proficient”?

But here’s the truth: standardized testing gives us a very narrow picture of a student’s abilities. 

These tests are designed to measure broad academic skills – reading comprehension, math problem-solving, maybe some writing. They’re useful for identifying large-scale trends or school-wide performance. But when it comes to understanding an individual child’s strengths, struggles, and learning profile, standardized tests fall short. 

Here’s why:

• They measure what’s been taught, not how a student learns.

A student might score “below grade level” on a reading test – but is it because they can’t decode or because they have attention difficulties? Do they struggle with comprehension, or did they simply mismanage their time?

• They don’t reflect processing, working memory, or executive functioning challenges.

A student with ADHD might know the material well, but struggle to focus for the duration of a lengthy test. Their score won’t reflect what they know – it reflects how well they managed the format.

• They create pressure without context.

Kids who experience anxiety often underperform in high-stakes testing environments. That doesn’t mean they’re not capable – it means the test didn’t capture their best thinking.

So what does give us real insight?

Consistent, individualized observation over time.

This is where educational therapy makes a difference. In an educational therapy setting, we don’t just look at what a student got wrong – we look at why. We examine how they approach tasks, where their thinking breaks down, and what strategies they use (or don’t use). Over time, we identify patterns that a one-time test could never catch.

One student I work with – let’s call her Sofia – scored within the “standard nearly met” in math on her state test. Her teachers thought she just didn’t understand fractions. But during educational therapy sessions, we discovered she understood the concepts just fine – she simply froze when multi-step word problems were presented in dense language. Once we broke things down and taught her how to chunk information, she thrived. 

State tests might tell us what percentage of kids passed a benchmark. But they won’t tell us what’s really going on inside a child’s learning process. 

If your child’s test scores don’t reflect what you know about them – or if they leave you with more questions than answers – trust your instincts. There’s always more to the story. And educational therapy can help you find it.