tl;dr — In five years we will not need standardized tests. Instead, the tech tools used in teaching will provide a benchmark of exactly what students know and have been able to achieve in their learning to date through data tracking and dynamic portfolios.
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Standardized testing is eating education alive, and to what end? The underlying value proposition is strong: test students so you can track their progress, know how efficacious their teachers are, and benchmark one state against another. We’ve come a long way with the tests, and by 2015 the United States will (theoretically) begin administering them all online with the help of companies like PARCC and Smarter Balance.

Yet improving incrementally on this summative and standardized system will not get us where we need to go. Rarely are the tests designed in a way that allow students to demonstrate deep thought, reflection, or knowledge. Moreover, in a world that increasingly cares less about structure and 9-5 work weeks, the tests do not account for different learning or performance styles.

Luckily, the technology tools being developed in education today will gradually replace standardized testing by offering a snapshot of student understanding. Consider the three examples below as replacements for standardized testing, showing progress in grammar, math, and behavior.

Proponents will tell you that a testing environment is good — that, in the real world, students need to perform in a given moment and they need to learn to deal with the stress. From this perspective, allowing performance on tools like Khan Academy or NoRedInk to count makes no sense because students can practice and refine their solutions. Yet the real world is much more forgiving —I am constantly doing drafts of papers, revisions to presentations, and consulting the team when I need help evaluating investment opportunities.

The gradual shift away from standardized testing towards the performance snapshot model will change the conversation from “what was my grade” to “how can I better understand?” And what better goal of primary and secondary education than to have students exit with an inquisitive drive and having learned how to learn?

As a biology student turned venture investor, I view the ecosystem of startups a little differently than most. The “Series A Crunch” is a standard carrying capacity problem, blue ocean markets are little more than keen takes on speciation, and predation, parasitism, and mutualism run rampant. I've even gotten to thinking that founders of companies are a bit like gorillas, and their business models are no more than reproduction strategies. 

But these theories are for another day - there is one concept in the startup ecosystem that has this student of Darwin cringing from the implications: disruption. 

I take issue with the notion of “disruption,” particularly in the field of education, where real futures of real student minds are on the line. I don’t want the process disrupted, because that means the old system must die by failure and abandonment. In the case of education, that’s an entire generation. 

I’d like to propose instead we view evolution in the business world the same way it is seen in the natural world - through a combination of gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Gradualism (otherwise known as “incremental innovation”) is the process of small change over time, and we see evidence for it in the geologic record. But sometimes there are big jumps, large changes that lead to a new species, or new abilities. This is known as punctuated equilibrium.

Consider the classic example of Darwin’s Finches. They all started the same, and as they were isolated on different islands, each adapted to the specific needs of the niche (“peripatric isolation”). Some got longer beaks to reach in flowers, some thicker to break hard nuts. 

The internet is like the galapagos, made up of islands with niches. The mainland had its species - it’s books, pens, and [some other thing in the past]. Now it’s time to reach a new equilibrium, many little equilibriums, according to the world around us. Eventually, people will take boats to see the pretty new birds.

No need to disrupt - just to evolve.