The Existing Ethical Issues of American Standardized Testing

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After the implementation of the “No Child Left Behind Act” high risk standardized testing has become a pressure cooker of corruption in the United States due to often unrealistic expectations, abundant incentives, and harsh punishments placed upon educators and administrators, overall resulting in the essential need for reform. The concept that every student’s academic ability can be assessed by a single universal exam is a misguided notion.
A large majority of educators are subject to severe punishments in the even that their students do not perform at or above the “adequate yearly progress” standard. If their students consistently underperform, the teachers are often severely and swiftly punished. If a teacher is presented with a substantially underperforming class, regardless of the teacher’s ability they will run into obstacles in adequately preparing the class for testing. Overall, placing these educators into a dark corner come test day. They must decide to either have the students flail on their own, likely resulting in failure and penalty for both the children and the teacher, to provide unauthorized assistance on the exam. During an anonymous survey asking teachers and test proctors about their standardized test experience “35% of teachers surveyed were aware of or had participated in test irregularities” (Richardson, Wheeless, and Cunningham), proving that this is not a small incident situation. Teacher cheating is a huge flaw in the institution of academic testing. A utilitarian view would states that in a short term sense, teacher cheating benefits both the teacher and their students; the teacher is not punished and may even receive a raise or bonus, and the students pass the “adequate yearly progress” standard, and p...

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Jacob, Brian, and Steven Levitt. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating." Oxford University Press. 118.3 (2003): 843-877. Web. 22 Mar. 2014. .

Richardson, Brian K., Lawrence R. Wheeless, and Cody Cunningham. "Tattling on the Teacher: A Study of Factors Influencing Peer Reporting of Teachers Who Violate Standardized Testing Protocol." Communication Studies 59.3 (2008): 202-19. Print.

Kohn, Alfie. "Who's Cheating Whom?" The Education Digest 73.5 (2008): 4-11. ProQuest. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

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