Do Test Scores Really Indicate if Your Students "Get It"?

Often times as educators, we feel that we spend hours pouring into our students to help them 'pass a test'. We hold review sessions, give study guides, play classroom games, and even hint fervently at exactly which terms and information we want our students to know. Most of the time, teachers get frustrated at poor test results, and feel as if they are not communicating the information that their students need to know. Have you ever considered for a second though, if students are passing your tests, but don't know your content? Below is an example of this from Cris Tovani's classroom.

Faraz and the Vocabulary Test
An Actual Story From Cris Tovani's Classroom
Taken from pages 15-19, condensed by myself for ease of reading

     Tovani wanted to test how she could accurately assess the students understanding of their vocabulary words using only a Scantron. To test the hypothesis, she ruled out as much cheating as possible - put the desks in rows, stapled everyone's tests in different orders, and paced up and down the rows to ensure no student would cheat. She also searched for definitions written on desks and had the students store all of their notebooks and backpacks away from their desks. She had one student she kept an eye on specifically because he never showed up for vocabulary lessons, avoided the weekly vocabulary quizzes, and was failing the vocabulary section of the class. After the tests were over, she finished grading them and found that this student got a 100% on her test. The next day, she spoke to the student and asked him how he passed the test. After some finagling and dealing, the student promised to tell her how he cheated if she wouldn't go to the dean. He admitted that he was texting his friends who knew the answers to the vocabulary words the whole time, and they texted him back with definitions to the words he didn't know. Tovani, who watched him the whole class, had not seen him send a single text message. Even though she made him do multiple vocabulary activities to make up for the cheating, she still discovered that

"Just because a kid aces a test doesn't mean he knows and understands the material."