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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. Too much time is being devoted to preparing students for standardized tests. Parents should worry about what schools are sacrificing in order to focus on raising test scores. Schools across the country are cutting back on, or even eliminating programs in the arts, recess for young children, field trips, electives for high school students, class meetings, discussions about current events, the use of literature in the elementary grades, and entire subject areas such as science (if the tests cover only language arts and math) (Kohn Standardized Testing and Its Victims 1). Alfie Kohn, author of The Case against Standardized Testing, recalls a specific incident of how children are being cheated out of valuable class time. He states that a school in Massachusetts used a remarkable unit, for a middle-school class, where students chose an activity and extensively researched it, and reported or taught, it to the class. This program has had to be removed from the course curriculum in order to devote enough time to teaching prescribed material for their standardized tests. At my high school all students in the tenth grade were required to take the Graduation Qualifying Exam. Many students did not pass the test their first time, and were forced to go through the test up to four more times, and if they did not pass the test in this amount of time, they did not graduate. It is hard to test students in this way since no one was taught the same way all 12 years or learned the same exact things; these differences are why people are different (Popham 2). School is more about testing now, and we have veered away from creative teaching to teach a test. We need to have teachers who inspire kids to want to ... ... middle of paper ... ... Testing: Pro and Con. Web. 28 June 2015. . Kohn, Alfie. “Standardized Testing and Its Victims.” Education Week. September 2000. Kohn, Alfie. The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann 2000. Kohn, Alfie. “The Worst Kind of Cheating.” Streamlined Seminar. Winter 2002-03. Meier, Deborah. Will Standards Save Public Education? Boston: Beacon Press, 2002. Morse, Jodie. "Is That Your Final Answer?.” Educational Tests and their Measurements. June 2000. Web. 30 June 2015. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997209,00.html Popham, W. James. “Standardized Achievement Tests: Misnamed and Misleading.” Education Week. September 2001. Web. 28 June 2015. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2001/09/19/03popham.h21.html Sacks, Peter. "The Toll Standardized Tests Take." National Education Association. 2000. Web. 2 July 2015. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/interviews/2953178/toll-standardized-tests-take Wellstone, Paul. The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda. New York: Random House, 2002.
Miltich, Matthew. "Standardized Testing and Assessment Do Not Improve Education." Education: Opposing Viewpoints. New York: Greenhaven, 2005. 151-54. Print.
Another major criticism of the “No Child Left Behind” deals with the implications of using a standardized test as means of assessing achievement.
Popham, W. James. "Why standardized tests don't measure educational quality." Educational Leadership 56 (1999): 8-16.
Standardized tests have been used to see how much a child has learned over a certain period of time. These tests have been a highly debated issue with many parents and just people in general. In the article “Opting out of standardized tests? Wrong answer,” the author Michelle Rhee argues that people should not be trying to opt out of standardized tests because it allows the country to see how much a child has learned and the things they need to improve. On the other hand, in the article “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong,” the author Kristina Rizga argues that standardized tests are not an efficient way to measure a student’s intelligence.
Ruthven, R. (2007, November 7). Is Standardized Testing Hurting Education? Associated Content. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from www.associatedcontent.com/article/438846/is_standardized_testing_hurting_education.html
Evans, Donia. "The Case Against Standardized Tests." The Meridian Star. 24 Nov. 2013. The Meridian Star. 01 Dec. 2013 .
Wiliam, Dylan. "Standardized Testing and School Accountability." Educational Psychologist. 45(2). (2010): 107-122. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
"Study Finds Standardized Tests Hurting Students." Chicago Tribune. 16 Oct. 1992. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
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.
Parents and advocates of education can all agree that they want their students to be in the best hands possible in regards to education. They want the best teachers, staffs, and schools to ensure their student’s success. By looking at the score results from standardized testing, teachers can evaluate effectively they are doing their job. On the other side, a proponent for eliminating standardized testing would argue that not all students care passionately about their education and will likely not perform to expectations on the test. However, receiving the numerical data back, teachers can construe the student’s performances and eliminate the outliers of the negligent kids. Teachers can then look at the individual scores and assign those outliers to get the help they need in school. This helps every student getting an equal chance at education. Overall, taking a practice standardized test can let a teacher look at individual questions and scores and interpret what they need to spend more time on teaching. A school also can reap the benefits from standard testing to ensure they are providing the best possible education they can. The school can look at the average scores from a group and hold the teacher accountable for the student’s results on the test. The school can then determine the best course of action to pursuit regarding the teacher’s career at the school. By offering teachers and schools the opportunity to grow and prosper, standardized testing is a benefit for the entire education
Popham, James W. "Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality." Educational Leadership 56.6 (1999): 8-15. Print.
Standardized testing is something all students and teachers dread. The weeks leading up to the tests are filled with teachers stressing about grants and their jobs both of which are riding on students success; students worrying about being able to pass the test to move on to the next grade, giving the state a bad impression about their teachers, and if their scores on these tests will affect their chances of going to college. This is what the states standardized tests are doing to instructors and pupils all across the country. Researchers at Bowling Green State University in Ohio found that two out of three surveyed elementary school students said that proficiency testing caused excess stress, and three out of four secondary students shared that belief. (Edwards)
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...
Bush’s signing of the No Child Left behind Act in 2002 ushered in the current era of high-stakes testing. The law required states to administer math and reading tests every year to students from third to eighth grade and imposed increasingly harsh punishments on schools that failed to make “adequate yearly progress” on these tests. By 2011, “almost half of schools nationwide were labeled as “failing” because they could not make adequate yearly progress.” Students are often discouraged because of the pressure being put on them by their teachers as well as their parents. Some parents always enforce their child to study hard in all their subjects, but they don’t realize that some of them are secretly competing with other students. This then creates peer-pressure among themselves that when is time to take the test, they are not really focused on the purpose or their goal and when the results are out, their performance on the test shows an unpleasant
“If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.” This quote by Michelle Obama illustrates the idea that standardized testing should not have such a large influence on education in America. However, a majority of people are under the impression that standardized tests are an accurate method to measure a person's intellectual ability. I believe that standardized tests have developed into a very critical part of the American education system that is hindering the growth of students and teachers instead of providing a tool that can accurately measure knowledge.