Standardized testing has been a global phenomenon for decades, but the question of whether or not these tests have become overvalued is a much-debated topic in the United States. The weight put on testing affects children of all ages, even more with the No Child Left Behind act, as the amount of tests students have to take is growing. “A typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten classes and 12th grade, a new Council of the Great City Schools study found” (Layton 1). This amount of rigorous testing interrupts schools’ schedules, and leaves policy makers questioning whether they should implement a law prohibiting more than 2% of class time being used for test taking. Standardized testing is also incomplete, …show more content…
Not only can standardized testing not measure all traits, but it isn’t as standardized as some think. A student’s answer to a question also depends on their reading level, a correlation found in multiple studies, according to “The Validity of Standardized Testing in Science,” an article centered upon studies regarding readability of testing questions. In all, a student incorrectly answering a question doesn’t always mean they don’t know the material, as Visone states in his article, “These students may need alternate test forms or performance-based assessments in order to accurately display their content-area knowledge. In short, one size does not fit all for assessment of content-area knowledge” (1). While standardized testing has its flaws, scores are still used to “...decide whether students are entitled to tutoring services or whether they can transfer to a different school or whether we should close a school and reconstitute its staff” (P. Harris, et al. 2). Based on this, it is clear that test scores have become one of the driving sources of academic decisions, regardless how incomplete they are. Although standardized tests have their time and place, it is clear that testing has become an overused, despite being an incomplete practice. The system of standardized testing should be reimagined and compared to other alternatives, in order to create an actual admissible