Education faces a lot of criticism, some with good cause.

The U.S. ranks low in reading and math compared with other developed nations. A recent trend to combat our shortcomings is to “assess” students regularly.

These reforms began in K-12 education with renewed emphasis on standardized testing. Test scores are tied to federal and state funds to incentivize improvement. These assessment type reforms have now reached higher education.

Colleges and universities must assess all aspects of their institutions — from teaching to athletics, student services to library use — to maintain accreditation.

The entire process takes years and is required every decade. In theory, linking assessment to a long accreditation process should ensure quality education by incentivizing accountability.

Thus far, the results have not been altogether positive. Students still leave high school with poor reading and math abilities. They know very little about our history or form of government. Some students leave college not much better off.

So, why has formal assessment not improved education?

It turns out that the incentives run the assessments. In some cases, heightened K-12 testing has resulted in cheating.

Gregory Cizek, professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, among others, has extensively studied cheating by students, teachers and administrators. Some teachers teach to the tests; others teach the tests; some change answers for students.

That may help schools get funding, but it doesn’t help students learn.

The results have been similar at the college level. Schools create classes for assessment, not educational, purposes.

When an institution decides that it must assess students’ critical thinking ability, it creates a required critical thinking course for all students. Were there courses currently taught which assess students’ critical thinking skills?

Yes, but assessing all those courses would be difficult. So, all students must take one specific course. Then, if assessments do not produce the “correct” results, educators change the assessment or adjust their goals. Teachers who buy into this are rewarded; those who just want to teach are not.

Obviously, schools need to assess students’ and institutional progress. Educators need to know whether students are learning. But, one cannot worship equally the gods of assessment and the gods of education; one has to take precedence.

If assessment becomes too important, if funding, accreditation, and salaries are tied to it, it becomes an end in itself. That is not education. Education is about people, and the reality is that most learning in life occurs with no formal assessment.

The argument for assessment is that you can’t know whether you have succeeded in teaching something unless you assess it. To a point, that is true. But, when having an easy assessment is more important than having quality education, then it is destructive.

The more time teachers spend assessing, the less time they spend with students. Parents and students pay for an education, through property taxes, loans or tuition bills. They don’t want (and should not have) to pay for assessments that don’t have a clear purpose beyond themselves.

Dr. Laura Lansing is a psychology professor at Mount Aloysius College, Cresson.