Alfie Kohn Literature Review

The primary purpose of standardized tests is to evaluate students and show whether or not the standards of the standardized test was met in the school. However, the risks of these tests outweigh the benefits. A standardized test is not the sole test that determines the level of the student’s intelligence. Standardized tests place pressure on teachers to instruct a group of diverse students who are all on different academic levels. When students score poorly on standardized tests, school districts are coerced to lose federal education f... ... middle of paper ... ...ngle test that does not even measure the entirety of a student’s intelligence.

Good or bad? After much research it has been found that having a high-stakes testing environment in schools creates unsuccessful results in education. Valerie Strauss, an education reporter from Washington, D.C . was able to get information from the Massachusetts professors and researchers themselves who stated: As educators and researchers from across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we strongly oppose our state’s continued over reliance on high-stakes standardized testing to assess student achievement, evaluate teacher effectiveness, and determine school quality. Given that standardized tests provide only one indicator of student achievement, and that their high-stakes uses produce ever-increasing incentives to teach to the test, narrow the curriculum, or even to cheat, we call on the BESE to stop using standardized tests in high-stakes decisions affecting students, teachers, and schools.

While these advances are beneficial, standardized exams often hurt already disadvantaged schools, promote states to lower their standards of education, and cause schools to focus more on the exams themselves rather than on their students' actual learning (Karp). One of the major foundations of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, a national law requiring public schools to distribute standardized tests at least once a year, is that schools may be sanctioned by the federal government as a result of poor test grades. Obviously, this threat places an extraordinary amount of stress on schools to do well on their exams and holds teachers and administrators more accountable. However, it also causes teachers to teach the test rather than their curriculum, allowing students to perform better on exams without actually understanding the tested material (Karp). Test-teaching has become so common that students may actually take classes helping them to improve test scores, and whole days of public school are spent teaching kids better and faster ways to eliminate wrong answers (Gallagher).

Another problem of negative issues outweighing the positive issues is quite a turning point of discussion for the reform of the act. The NCLB is all circumventing the standard testing of the reading, writing and math areas of education. How about the student that doesn’t fair well on testing? The different ideas for the presentation of test scores both for the parents, the state and the student are in dire need of reform. The results can be altered by a few points of interest.

And the idea of accountability, which is also central to this theory of school reform, requires that the test results have direct and immediate consequences: a student who does not meet the standard should not be promoted, or awarded a high school diploma”(books.nap.edu). Social promotion is allowing a student to move up a grade just because of their age. Standardized testing is helping students by keeping them back a grade or having them attend summer school in order for them to learn the skills they need in order to succeed in school and life. Recent facts have shown how often children have been promoted without the necessary knowledge. ... ... middle of paper ... ... National Academies Press.

And very few short stories. It 's mostly nonfiction, because that 's what will be on the tests. Any books I teach outside of the curriculum will harm my students ' scores on the tests that evaluate them and my performance” (Williams). Williams uses real world examples from teachers to support the impact of curriculum caused by standardized testing. Williams provided an example of a teacher who believes the importance of curriculum has changed since the increase in the importance of standardized testing.

Even though the No Child Left Behind has brought standardized test scores up since it was enacted in 2002 some people believe that it is not a good policy for the school system.Teacher... ... middle of paper ... ...the law drew attention to the achievement gap and exposed the glaring and profound inequities in American Society…”(Noguera). This exposed the areas that needed the most help in catching up with the other students. In doing this the school system is better able to help them get the help that they need so that they can succeed in school. Yet, the achievement gap still exists today maybe not as bad as it once was. The government has stopped providing aid and is now telling the states that they have to provide the money for the new programs that the NCLB is requiring the schools to perform.

This review will attempt to study the immediate and long- term effects of not completing high school because of less than optimal results on required exit exams and the resulting decreased educational opportunities, as well as minimal vertical social mobility for minority students. Government policies are increasingly being enacted in the educational arena, but how successful has those been? . Is the uniform testing of students a form of institutionalized discrimination? Educational Testing 3 Are High School Exit Exams a By-Product of Institutionalized Discrimination?

This achievement gap is a social problem in the education system since this is affecting many schools in the United States. As a response to this social problem, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed to assist in closing this achievement gap by holding schools more accountable for the students’ progress. Unsuccessful, the No Child Left Behind Act was ineffective as a social response since schools were pushed to produce high test scores in order to show a student’s academic progress which in turn, pressured teachers and students even more to do well on these tests. Throughout the nation, education inequality affects many minority students that have low-income which reinforces the disparity between the rich and the poor. The amount of children that have a socioeconomic background of poverty in the United States is estimated to be 32.4 million (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2011).

After this intimidation, he announces that it's test time. Another scantron is passed out. Time to fill in hundreds of bubbles that seem to overwhelm by brain: A B C or D? This is the kind of scenario Ken Robinson talks about in his Ted Talk, How Schools Kill Creativity. Because of this sense of fear and stigma of being wrong placed in the classroom, and a huge focus on standardized testing, our potential to become creative, imaginative thinkers is hindered.