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How standardized testing damages education
Argument for standardized testing
How standardized testing damages education
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Steven Spielberg has directed many movies like Jaws, E.T., and Saving Private Ryan. He applied for college three times but was unable to become accepted due to his low GPA (Where the Rich and Famous…). In order to be accepted into college, students are required to have certain scores on standardized tests, high GPA’s from high school, and money. Colleges use these numbers to predict how well a student is potentially going to do. They judge grades and connect to future success. Howard Gardner and Benjamin Bloom have developed The Learning Pyramid and believe there are seven types of intelligences. One type of intelligence is logical-mathematical, and another is linguistic. Logic deals with problem solving and mathematics, while linguistic deals with writing (Learning Pyramid). These are the only two intelligences being tested out of seven by GPA’s and Standardized tests. The grading system for United States middle schools and high schools does not provide an accurate assessment of achievement and has been a deterrent. Teachers become a deterrent by grading students using bias judgments. Teachers must be held responsible to focus on equality of all students otherwise they risk corruption. Their judgments cause incorrect assessments of students. This degrades the grading system. Teachers subconsciously grade on attitude. According to Peg Tyre’s, A’s for Good Behavior, a newspaper article, she says, “About 10 percent of the students who earned A’s and B’s in school stumbled during end-of-the-year exams. By contrast, about 10 percent of students who scraped along with C’s, D’s and even F’s — students who turned in homework late, never raised their hands and generally seemed turned off by school — did better than the... ... middle of paper ... ...lf-esteem fluctuation which promotes cheating. Students who cheat do not understand the information. So, grades deter from understanding and learning information. The grading system for United States middle schools and high schools does not provide an accurate assessment of achievement and has been a deterrent to a students’ self-esteem, ability in understanding material, and position compared to others. Overall, grades only hinder one’s education instead of fairly assessing students. Actual knowledge is how well you retain the information over a long period of time. It seems the grading system only gets in the way of students’ learning processes. The pressure of grades is simply a tool of power rather than an evaluation to see how students are doing. Removing the grading system will get rid of the disadvantages only bringing benefits to the table.
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
The article written by Michael Thomsen addresses the issue: should we as a society continue using a standardized grading system. Thomsen includes many reasons supporting his ultimate conclusion that we should not continue with any system of standardized grades. However, the reasons he uses to support his conclusion are affected by significant ambiguity which weakens the overall argument.
“Making the Grade” by Kurt Wiesenfeld Newsweek magazine, June 27 1996 brings to light an issue that has been glazed over by society for some time, grade inflation. It’s highly disturbing that “we lament that schoolchildren get “kicked upstairs” until they graduate from high school despite being illiterate and mathematically inept, but we seem unconcerned with college graduates whose less blatant deficiencies are far more harmful, if their accreditation exceeds their qualifications”. The issue of grade inflation is not simply an issue of students feeling entitled to higher grades than they have earned, it is a problem that directly impacts our society in a multitude of negative ways. Perhaps the “gold star” mentality started out with the good intentions of creating children with positive self-esteem, however, a direct result is lazy adults with a sense of entitlement for no reason, who lack qualifications to adequately and safely perform their jobs.
According the three leading effects of grading outlined in Kohn’s paper, the number one effect of grading is “grades tend to reduce students' interest in being taught.” I would agree with his argument grading and testing puts pressure on getting excellent grades and takes the focus off understanding and on “performing” acceptably. When I was younger, I was ferocious reading lately the only reading I accomplish is required for a class or studying a textbook. It was enjoyable since I loved reading; I was not required to read all the books I read due to my genuine love for reading and words. Because of that, I excelled in English.
The United States of America has placed low on the educational ladder throughout the years. The cause of such a low ranking is due to such heavy emphasis on standardized testing and not individual student achievement. Although the United States uses standardized testing as a crutch, it is not an effective measure of a student’s ability, a teacher’s competency, or a school’s proficiency.
In “What is a Grade” by Pat Belanoff, she explains the pros and cons of the grading system. In Pats ' essay she states “Perhaps the solution would to abandon grading altogether in writing class. I confess that this a solution that appeals to me greatly.” (151). Grades should not be present in the way we test students’ learning ability.
Before we can look at how grading affects learning Farber suggests we look at how it has affected students (333-334). The greatest effect of being graded happens to the individual. Farber asks, “Did you need grades to learn how to drive?” We have become “grade junkies.” Without the grades students can’t learn (333). Vogel agrees that students believe grades are the motivating factor in learning, but only for the money. Students want the grades because high GPA’s equal high paying jobs (338-339). Another negative effect of grades is that students want the best grade with the least amount of learning but this causes conflict with professors because the professor’s goal is different compared to the student’s (339). Grades have positive effects too. Farber believes that grades give us discipline, but not self-discipline. True self-discipline comes from wanting something not coercion (334). Farber defines self-discipline as revising one paragraph all night because one enjoys it (334.)
The argument on the debate on whether or not the academic grading system is fair or not, isn’t something that is discussed too often. We have come to accept that the current grading system is the norm and that it is something that is unchangeable. To question the fairness of grading in this debate, isn’t on how it was adopted, but rather on how much of a student’s progress is up for interpretation. With varying opinions from Professors, it makes it difficult to set a standard of work across the board. The need for a grading system is understandable, even necessary to be able to mark the performance of students, especially in higher education. A student’s knowledge is pivotal in obtaining employment and becoming
Colleges in America grade students academically for successful careers. For years students grades were calculate by an alphabetic/numeric grade scale. Today colleges are questioning whether grades should be determined by continuing to use a grade scale or switch to a pass/fail scale. Although, there were numerous of factors both positive and negative about a pass/fail system to take into consideration before making a decision. I feel that colleges in America should continue to use a grade scale to convey to students that grades have consequences, open doors to opportunity, and alleviates perturbation.
Albert Einstein once stated, “not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.” High-stakes testing attempts to determine the knowledge a person has obtained throughout grades K-12. These standardized tests are being used to judge a person’s ability to graduate from high school and also judge if a child has enough knowledge to proceed to the next grade level. Throughout this paper, I will be discussing how these tests do not accurately portray one’s intelligence, how they have increased drop out rates, and also show the damaging psychological affects they have had.
One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...
Kevin C. Costley quotes, “reducing grade inflation must be strictly followed by all faculty members. If not followed, the final product is meaningless” and states that students select and even transfer to universities and majors in accordance with the possibility of getting good grades (3, 4). These actually create self-discrepancy. Students will select universities that offer less strict grade standards and the college that practices grade inflation restrictions would gradually fall behind due to natural selection. Frankly speaking, following Kevin’s solutions would make things worse. If there is no curve on the test, it will be nothing but unfair. The professors create tests with tremendously various levels of difficulty every year, and they differ from classes too. Making curves is the least they can do to compensate for the fluctuation. For the most part, extra credit is the last option for students to ask for especially when they undergo critical situations. Eliminating the final option will compromise the flexibility of class and deprive students of their will to surmount the circumstance and make new challenges. I mean, you cannot and will not try to remove all the cars in the world merely because they emit carbon
The public high schools began a grading system as a way of telling an individual how they were performing. There was no interest by the public in reporting the school’s progress at teaching. Teachers, in an effort to recognize outstanding performers, looked for a way of rewarding hard-working students for their efforts The grading structure changed from superior and excellent to A’s and B’s. This placed much of the burden of recognizing academic talent on the high schools.
One change institutions should make to the grading system is to eliminate all factors that have noting to do with learning outcomes from affecting the students’ grade. According to the article, “Assessment of Learning Outcomes: What’s the difference?” written by Carnegie Mellon University, grades are often based on more than learning outcomes. Instructors usually include factors unrelated to learning outcomes such as attendance to class, participation, improvement and in some cases, grades are boosted a bit due to how hard the student is working.” These factors are
...ions in which cheating is common, they face problems in the job or college search. Since many students with high marks from the institution prove uninformed in their field, employers and admissions committee are unable to verify which students do not know the information, and those who know the information. Therefore, they will have a negative effect of any student from that particular institution.