The Monster: School Testing

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The Monster: School Testing
Everyone has their fears, some don’t like heights, the dark, and some just being in a crowd or making a speech. One thing, however, many students dread is testing. Testing after every chapter is normal and many students can get through that if they understand the subject and it is taught well. There is one test, however, that to many, especially the younger children, see as a monster. This monster is standardized testing, a monster which needs to be put down. Anyone who has taken standardized tests notices a pattern. There are questions, on the standardized tests, that are straightforward for the grade level of test that everyone would know, there are questions below that grade level, and there are questions that you have to guess on because it is something above your level of knowledge. However most of the time those questions are irrelevant to what you are learning in those classes. How can you learn or see how much of what you are actually learning when you are constantly taking standardized tests. These standardized tests which are not being done by our schools, but the federal government.
The intent one must remember with standardized testing is that it is to gauge our countries overall level in certain areas. Testing overall holds many purposes. At its core testing allows teachers, professors and other educators to see how well their student(s) grasped the knowledge which was imparted to them. This in turn allows said students to see how well they had grasped the knowledge and what areas in which they need to work on. If the student does poorly then the teacher or the parents of the student may need to help the student focus more. Aside from seeing how well a student may have understood a subjec...

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...nited States. “After NCLB passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math...to 31th in 2009, with a similar drop in science and no change in reading” (Anderson). Parents are opting out their children and they rightfully are doing so. The amount of testing is ruining the rest of their education and will eventually ruin our economy, our future, many do not notice this and if standardized testing is not changed it will destroy our country, The proof was evident in a report by the National Research Council which states that incentive testing is even working how it should (CITBA ) so therefore Students are becoming beyond stressed from this and seeing the tests as a joke. Teachers are not able to teach their students the information they should be learning because they are constantly preparing for standardized tests. The monster needs to be put down.

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