Problems With Standardized Testing

Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.

The use of these tests has begun to not only affect the form of education but the level of knowledge students are taking away from their educational experience. Although standardized testing is used throughout the country, it is an unreliable measure of education and is dramatically changing the curricula causing a creativity crisis. Standardized testing is an unreliable measure of schools and should not be used to measure student learning, achievement gaps,and/or teacher student quality. They are unfair and discriminatory towards students from low income and minority­group backrounds; english language learners and students with disabilities. According to W. James Popham, an expert on educational assessment, “if children come from advantaged families and stimulus rich environments, then they are more apt to succeed on items in standardized achievement tests than other children whose environments don't mesh as well with what the tests measure” (W. James Popham).

Across the country, students, teachers, and schools are being rewarded or punished based on a set of “tolerable” test scores. Whether you consider yourself to be intelligent, dense, lethargic, or diligent the only measure a student has (or that society recognizes) is how fast and how accurately they can darken the circles on a multiple-choice test. This test-based reform model began about a decade ago with a call for elevated standards. This metamorphisized into a reliance on standardized tests to determine if high standards were being met. Today, children are being held back, denied access to a preferred program or school, and even refused a high school diploma on the basis of a single standardized test.

They are left with the responsibility of proving they are teaching what needs to be taught. States as well as the federal government use standardized testing to assess learning. They want someone to be held responsible for students’ learning. The problem lies when the teacher and student suffer from the results of standardized testing. “The pressure on educators and policymakers to demonstrate accountability in schools has driven some to use the test results inappropriately (Holloway, 2001).” Standardized tests are comparisons of one student to another not of how well a teacher teaches or a student learns.

Regrettably, the primary statistic judged is the success of their student’s performance on these standardized examinations. Some school reprimand there educator if too many students fail thus, scaring educators to teach to the test. There is added pressure to schools to get better scores which adds pressure to the educators and the students. The added pressure can cause health problems with the students or the educators. If health problem come from the stress of the tests it could negatively affect the student’s ability to learn (Pros and Cons, 2013).

“Rescuing the American Dream.” HUFF POST POLITICS February 2012. Web. 9 February 2012 http://www.huffingtonpostin.com/.../rescuing-the-american-dream.html Emerson, Greg. “The New American Dream: Retirement.” MAIN ST. July 2012. Web.

In efforts to explore this issue further, this essay reviews two articles on standardized testing. This essay reviews the sentiments of the authors and their insight into standardized examination. The articles provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that standardized tests are not effective at measuring a teacher’s competency because they do not take into account the school environment and its effect on the students. In “Standardized testing undermines teaching,” the author, Diane Ravitch, reviewed a book she authored, The death and life of the great American school system: how testing and choice are undermining education. This review highlights various cons of Standardized testing on the students and educators.

Standardized timed tests are really just about a student's performance in a determined amount of time on a given day. “The passing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 is responsible for this shift toward high-stakes standardized testing, requiring the states to adopt a system of accountability based on standardized test scores”(Tager, n.p.). These days, if a school's standardized test scores are high, people think the school's staff is effective. If a school's test scores are low, they see the school's staff as ineffective. In either aspect because educational quality is being measured by the wrong yardstick, those evaluations are more likely to be an error.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RTTT) are a few to name. Due to the passage of these laws the nation has become increasingly dependent upon standardized testing in order to evaluate students progress. Although lawmakers are trying their best to educate the students and measure their progress, standardized testing is not an accurate way to measure a child’s progress. Our current standardized testing system is not displaying the true intelligence of test takers. This is due to a variety of factors such as examiners' errors, over interpretation of the tests' data, failure to include certain age groups of students, and marketability (Czubaj 1).

First, tests don’t fully measure all important aspects of education, and second, tests only measure small parts of students ' knowledge (Philp Harris). Standardized testing cannot truly measure achievement correctly because there are no specific rules to what achievement really consists of and can only measure small parts of knowledge because of these inaccurate measures of knowledge students begin to feel anxious. There are many studies showing how testing causes high anxiety for students therefore causing a drop in performance when taking tests. Test taking can cause students to experience psychological issues that result in a failing grade on the test. Test anxiety can also affect the students` motivation to learn and because of this I believe the stakes for standardized testing should be