Education is an important concept of a human’s life. The system of education teaches us from a young age how to read, write, and be able to get through a lot of every-day activities. Without education, people would face obstacles in participating fully in society (Ackley). Education is something that once learned cannot be taken away. Since primary school children are thought different materials and activities to be able to advance to the next grade level. How a school goes about teaching these materials depend on the system of education of the state. Education is often a subject of controversy because of its importance and the way the system is thought. One issue that is frequently brought up in the system of education is whether standardized exams are a good way to test the knowledge of a student and whether they should be given in a school to determine if a child advances.
Standardized exams are a subject many people feel very strongly about. Some believe that it is stressful and time consuming; others consider that it can be beneficial. I believe that standardized exams should not be given to students and should not be used to determine the knowledge of students or advancement to the next grade level. This topic has several pros and cons. Parents and policymakers state that they prefer this form of testing because it shows them how much students are learning. On the other hand educators and intellectual allies prefer to replace these tests with portfolios of each student’s work, which would show their progress throughout the school year (Phelps).
One reason that I am against standardized exams is that these exams are not really testing the knowledge of a child; instead it is testing their ability to remember certain fac...
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ECampusTours. "Arguments for and against Standardized Testing in College Admissions - ECampusTours." Over 1300 360 Degree College Virtual Tours - Admissions and Financial Aid Tips - ECampusTours. 03 Feb. 2009. Web. 01 May 2011.
Fairtest. "What's Wrong With Standardized Tests? | FairTest." The National Center for Fair & Open Testing | FairTest. 17 Dec. 2007. Web. 01 May 2011. .
Phelps, Richard P. Kill the Messenger: the War on Standardized Testing. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2003. Print.
Pollard, Jonathan. "Measuring What Matters Least." Standardized Testing: Measuring What Matters Least. World Prosperity, Ltd, 2002. Web. 01 May 2011.
Young, Katie. "What's so Bad about Standardized Testing?" Michigan State University. Est. 1855. East Lansing, Michigan USA. Web. 01 May 2011.
First introduced in the early 1900’s, standardized testing was a way to allow students of a lesser social standing a more equal opportunity
Miltich, Matthew. "Standardized Testing and Assessment Do Not Improve Education." Education: Opposing Viewpoints. New York: Greenhaven, 2005. 151-54. Print.
Through the use of credible sources, an explanation, and connection to thesis Rizga is able to back up her argument. Rizga provides many credible sources; one of the many is Robert Glaser, “the godfather of standardized testing.” Rhee, however, although providing evidence, does not cite her source. Rizga writes about how Roberts Glaser warned people of the dangers of emphasizing on standardized testing. Rhee, on the other hand, states “Out of 34 developed nations, American kids rank 26th in the world in math, 21st in science and 17th in reading.” Rizga then explains her evidence by elaborating on Glaser’s warning by saying: “He called them ‘fallible and partial indicators of academic achievement’ and warned that standardized tests would find it ‘extremely difficult to assess’ the key skills people should gain from a good education.” Rhee, however, never explains her evidence. Rizga’s evidence clearly connects with her thesis because it supports her argument of how standardized tests are not an efficient way to measure a student’s intelligence. Rhee’s evidence supports the idea of how standardized test should be used to see how the United States ranks in the world, but this is not Rhee’s thesis. Through the use of credible sources, an explanation, and connection to the thesis, Rizga is able to clearly support her
Some may say standardized tests are a wonderful thing for schools to test their students but I'm here to tell you why they are bad. The standardized tests have too many problems that need to be changed. There is problems with how many are taken and they need to be fixed. There are too many problems with these tests and the government needs to modify them. So this essay will explain that standardized tests are bad and they need to be fixed, because kids take too many of them, countries who take less are outscoring us, and they are too low quality.
Smith, M. (2010). Why NOT a National Test for Everyone. Kappan, 1. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from www.pdkintl.org
Do you like being bombarded with the stress of having to take so many tests? In 1845 the US brought standardized testing in the subjects spelling, geography, and math into public schools (Standardized Testing 1). Standardized tests were made to swiftly assess students abilities (Standardized Testing 1). The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 mandated testing in all 50 states. In the article, “Standardized Tests,” it states that “US students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st place in 2009, with a similar decline in science and no change in reading” (Use of Standardized Tests 5). Blame of the decline in rates are on poverty levels, teacher quality, tenure policies, and increasingly on the pervasive use
Evans, Donia. "The Case Against Standardized Tests." The Meridian Star. 24 Nov. 2013. The Meridian Star. 01 Dec. 2013 .
Standardized testing scores proficiencies in most generally accepted curricular areas. The margin of error is too great to call this method effective. “High test scores are generally related to things other than the actual quality of education students are receiving” (Kohn 7). “Only recently have test scores been published in the news-paper and used as the primary criteria for judging children, teachers, and schools.”(2) Standardized testing is a great travesty imposed upon the American Public School system.
Standardized testing is not the best way to measure how well a teacher teaches or how much a student has learned. Schools throughout the United States put their main focus on standardized tests; these examinations put too much pressure on the teachers and students and cause traumatizing events. Standardized testing puts strain on teachers and students, causing unhealthy occurrences, Common Core is thrown at teachers with no teaching on how to teach the new way, which dampers testing scores for all students, and the American College Test determines whether a child gets into college or not based on what they have learned during high school. Standardized tests are disagreeable; tests should not determine the ranking of people. Standardized testing is believed to be the best way to evaluate how much a child has learned, however most students only score average on the tests.
Peterson, B. & Neill, M. (2014). Alternatives to standardized testing. Rethinking Schools. Retrieved from http://www.rethinkingschools.org/restrict.a sp?path=archive/13_03/assess.shtml
tests were primarily employed as measures of student achievement that could be reported to parents, and as a means of noting state and district trends (Moon 2) . Teachers paid little attention to these tests, which in turn had little impact on curriculum. However, in the continuing quest for better schools and high achieving students, testing has become a central focus of policy and practice. Standardized tests are tests that attempt to present unbiased material under the same, predetermined conditions and with consistent scoring and interpretation so that students have equal opportunities to give correct answers and receive an accurate assessment. The idea is that these similarities allow the highest degree of certainty in comparing result...
Popham, W. James. “Standardized Achievement Tests: Misnamed and Misleading.” Education Week. September 2001. Web. 28 June 2015.
Standardized testing remains to be a major controversial issue for the American society today. Exams are given to students at different levels in their educational career and are supposed to measure their academic knowledge, but are these tests really the best way to evaluate students? There have been numerous alternatives suggested to replace or be used in conjunction with standardized testing.
Standardized testing in the United States was not always common practice. In the Mid-1800s, Horace Mann, an education reformist, developed a test to administer to a group of students. Its purpose was to determine how students were performing at their current level and whether they were capable of proceeding to a higher level of education, although the student’s success on the test had no negative repercussions. These tests were a necessity at that time because the idea of public education was still being molded and these tests were the only means by which student progress could be measured. Within 35 years of the first recorded examination in 1845, testing became the factor which determined whether students were able to be promoted to the next grade.
Fairtest. (1990). Standardized Tests and our Children: A Guide to Testing Reform. Massachusetts: National Center for Fair and Open Testing.