As every student in high school knows getting into college is stressful and difficult in many ways. Junior and senior year of high school makes a student stress by taking and passing their core classes plus every standardized test they have to take including the SAT/ACT. Most colleges require the SAT or ACT to get into their college for every student that applies. There is only a few colleges that are test optional, they do not require any standardized testing to get into their college. That makes students decision on college very difficult because they have to pick and choose what college they can get into. Every student wants to get into their dream college, the college that they have always wanted to go to. Senior year is not just about …show more content…
Standardized test was made for placing US army recruits into military roles. Later they created it to judge the overall intelligence of students applying to college. After 2002’s, No Child Left Behind Act or NCLB was created and made testing mandated in all 50 states. In the 2000s, US was 18th in the world for math scores but slipped to 31st place in 2009. It also declined in science scores but no change in the reading scores. The ACT/SAT only has math, reading, writing, and science but does not test any other subjects you learn in school like social studies, history and other sciences, such as health science. The test does not test your intelligence or how well you think through problems instead, the goal of the tests is to find out what you were able to memorize throughout high school. Scores may determine placement in college classes that are at the right level for the student. Scores can also be used to identify students who may benefit from specific advisors or academic support in college. Taking these test makes a student stress more and more about studying to pass the test to get into college than their actual schoolwork and they can start to fail. Students are defined by a test score instead of what they do in their high school years including their GPA, extracurricular activities and volunteer activities. Students with high GPAs can fail or do bad on the SAT/ACT due to stress or not doing good on tests. Standardized tests only test certain things about a student. It does not show what the student can actually do as in motivation, creativity, reliability, self-discipline, leadership, honesty and many other things. All standardized testing is not fair to students especially ones that do not speak english and students with special needs because they all take the same test. Students that do not speak english as their first language can struggle on the tests because they will not
First introduced in the early 1900’s, standardized testing was a way to allow students of a lesser social standing a more equal opportunity
Though standardized testing has played a part in America's education system it took several tries before it played such a large role in education like it does today. The No child left Behind Act of 2002 was the foot hold standardized testing needed in order to be implemented into schools at a national level with such force. During the 1990’s the U.S felt as though it was falling behind on the Programme for International Assessment. “After No Child Left Behind (NCLB) passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009, with a similar drop in science and no change in reading”(walker 1).
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
Standardized testing assesses students, teachers, and the school itself, which puts a great deal of pressure on the students. High scores show that the school is effective in teaching students, while low test scores make teachers and schools look as though they are not teaching the students properly. This is not always the case. There are teachers who do teach students what they need to know to pass the test, but their students are still unprepared. Although teachers try to improve instruction, student performance is still variable to other factors that the school cannot control.
There are many people who simply do not perform well on tests.
“Students are taking between ten and twenty standardized tests, depending on the grade. A total average of one hundred thirteen different ones by graduation.”(Locker) A few years ago the United States, along with other nations, was given a test to assess the academic strengths and weaknesses of each nation and rank them accordingly. When the results were released and the United States was ranked near the bottom, it was decided to start incorporating more testing through school. Between benchmark, TLI, PARCC, and common core standards, teaching technique was forced to change. Standardized testing has had a negative effect on teachers and students, implementing inadequate grading standards and the common core curriculum, such testing has made
The world is no longer concerned with educating whole human beings, but instead, it is focused on collecting “data.” “Standardized testing robs students and teachers of using their creativity and critical thinking. It holds everyone accountable for meeting this one standard when that is nearly impossible to do. It turns us into robots, dehumanizing both teachers and students.” (Gettysburg College, 1) Standardized test are given to schools by the government. The problem with that is that the government is not in the classroom with students every day. They do not know what the students need. Standardized testing takes away time from student learning experiences where they are not able to think critically or be creative. Standardized tests take place in an artificial learning environment. They are timed, students are not allowed to ask questions, use references, talk to another student, and they cannot even get up and move around. All of these things do not mirror the reality of the real world at all. These tests are reducing the richness of human experience and human learning to a number/ set of numbers. A student may have a deep knowledge of a particular subject, but receive no acknowledgement for it because their test score may have been low. Maybe if students could draw a picture, lead a group discussion, or make a hands-on project, they could show all the knowledge that they really have. They cannot do any of these things in a standardized test. As stated before, testing also creates “winners” and losers.” The “winners” get to move on with their life, but the “losers” often suffer from loss of self-esteem and the damage of “low expectations.” Standardized tests do not value diversity either. There are a wide range of differences in the people who take standardized tests. People have different cultural backgrounds, different levels of proficiency in the English language, different learning and thinking styles, different
The United States has persistently been ranked at the bottom when it comes to education among developed countries. They have tried to come up with strategic ways to change their ranking, like standardized tests. This is an administered test over certain subjects like Math, English, History, and Science, and the form is the same for all test takers. They were not the first country to develop this method; in fact, this method was inspired from other countries that appeared to be doing better than them and still remain ranked at the bottom.
Standardized Tests are not effective at measuring student achievement (“Standardized Tests Do Not” 1). They also cannot tell what your main abilities are, or what you even know. Standardized Tests are bad for the classroom because they restrict learning, force teachers to teach to the test, and they do not effectively measure students’ abilities.
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.
Standardized tests are administered to allow reliable and valid comparisons to be made among students taking the test. Two major types of standardized tests are currently in use; norm-referenced and criterion-referenced. A norm-referenced test is a test that has been given to representative samples of students such that norms of performance are established. Each student taking the test receives a score that can be compared to the norm or normal or sample of students. The scores are then reported in percentiles. The main purpose of these tests is to rank students along a distribution of performance. Because of this tests are likely to have items that are very difficult for the grade level so students can be ranked. A criterion-referenced test looks like a norm-referenced test but multiple choice items are used and directions are standardized. The reason these tests are administered is based upon the content that all students are expected to learn. Scores are based on the amount learned by the student and a passing score is then given. These scores are not compared to other students. Standardized tests are used to show how a student is doing. They can show if a program is working well and can show if the educators are using effective teaching methods. Schools are graded to see if there overall program is helping the student to achieve their goals. In the next paragraphs I am going to explain to you about the purpose of the American College Testing Program (ACT) and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).
As child growing up some of the frightful memories include a visit to the dentist; an evil man with scary drill whose solve purpose is to hurt you or the first day in elementary school you finally leave all behind the cozy classrooms and nap times of kindergarten and enter the big leagues. All of these are considered a cakewalk compared to standardize testing. Since the start of elementary school students in the United States are taught to test. In many instances students are held back or placed in remedial classes because of lower grades. But many don’t realize that some students are not great at testing taking and because of the lower grades some educators believe that these students are lower achievers. This leads to lower self-esteem and encourage students to drop out in later years. Also students are forced to memorize information merely as facts without sparking their creativity or enhancing their knowledge.
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.
College is a dream for everyone that wants to succeed. College is also not so easy for everyone to accomplish. Having a degree in any area is great but does everyone know what you had to go through in order to get a degree. Many of the pressures students faced in the 1970s have remained the same but over time some have changed extremely to affect the college life of a student today. Recently tuition is at a very high rate compared to back in the 1970s. Today many students are pressure to succeed they put their own health at risk in order to pass a class and an exam. Students also face social pressure from friends and family.
Standardized testing can be traced all the way back to the seventh century in China. Chinese officials started to administer written test to select individuals for civil service. Standardized testing is more common than most people realized and had important parts in America’s history. Tests in any subject let you know how you’re doing and a standardized achievement test is not any different. A standardized test allows the pupil to know how they are doing in a larger view. The only difference between a standardized test and regular old class test is the standardized nature of the one that is in fact standardized. The scores for standardized achievement tests can mean many different things from being college ready to proficient in math.