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Argumentative Essay On Standardized Testing

423 Words2 Pages

Standardized: Lies, Money, and Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” –Albert Einstein

America, land of the free, land of liberty, land of the American dream, home of standardized testing. Art, sports, and music programs removed from the educational curriculum. After school programs, gym, and recess used to prep for high stakes testing. In a world where individuality and creativity are essential components of hope and prosperity, standardized tests have forced our children of tomorrow’s future to conform. We now teach our children to believe their educational worth is solely based on a number. …show more content…

A standardized test is a single way of looking at how a student knows the material, but students do not learn one single way nor do teachers teach a single way. Innovation and individuality have ceased from schools, learning and teaching are no longer fun. As stated in the documentary Standardized, “35-45% of students will fail before they even take the test.” Therefore, how can we accurately compare our students to others when they did not have a chance from the beginning? Lack of school funding, hunger, sleep-deprived, depressed, and underfed students are suffering as more money funds standardized testing rather than the welfare of these children. Today’s politicians focus on improving policies in which they know nothing about. Until politicians have worked with children every day in a classroom and can understand what it means to engage students in learning, how the students learn, and why they enjoy school so much, he will never understand how to use a standardized test and it results. Instead, they are stressing children forcing them to take a high stakes test beginning as early as 6-years old. Never mind the pressure they are putting on our children, as long as they are in office and continue

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Standard testing is a very controversial and important subject because it deals with the progression of the American education system. The practice of these assessments has been highly scrutinized not only for the way it has changed the format of classrooms, but also for its accuracy, pressure, and abundance. In 2001, standardized testing became federally mandated through the No Child Left Behind Act by former president George Bush Jr. According to research from the Council of the Great City Schools, students have been taking “an average of 113 tests from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade” (K. Hefling). These numbers have increased to the point where parents have opted for their children to not attend standardized exams.

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Put simply, standardized tests are ones that require all test takers to answer the same questions, are scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, in order to compare the relative performance of individuals or groups of students, and are primarily associated with a large scale (Standardized). While the idea of the tests may be simple to understand, the controversy surrounding the issue becomes increasingly complex as politicians, business people, and teachers continue to debate the topic. For the purpose of this paper, two academic articles were chosen to display both sides of the

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There is nothing more agitating than having to walk into a classroom and sit in the exact same seat for upwards of four hours, just to take a test that will never be seen or spoken of again. Standardized testing has been known to take a toll on students, from elementary to high school. Studies have shown that between pre-k and twelfth grade, students will take over one hundred standardized tests (“Study Reveals”). Not only are these “assessments” time consuming, but they are also unnecessary. Standardized testing has been recognized as a huge issue in American schools, and journalists and comedians have addressed it through horatian satire.

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Standardized testing Although many people believe that standardized testing is an accurate measure of student success and college readiness, standardized testing does more harm than good. Supporters of standardized testing believe that it motivates students to excel because it is a huge determining factor in their future. They also view it as a way to measure student achievements against other students on local and national levels. However, standardized testing should be eliminated because it leads to teaching to the test, which causes a loss of learning vital information, it has many negative emotional effects, and it isn’t an accurate representation of the student’s intelligence.

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Have you ever thought of what our education system would be like without standardized testing? Henry Chuancy and Wilbur Bender invented standardized testing, the SAT specifically, in order to identify the gifted and talented students (Tozer, 2002, p.231). The Early Cold War had just begun and The United States believed the key to winning it was detecting the gifted and talented students and grouping them so they could excel above the rest (Tozer, 2002, p.231). In this paper, I will argue that standardized testing is needed in our education system. As stressful as standardized testing can be, I believe it is a crucial part of today’s education system and allows students to be measured by intelligence.

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Without support from teachers, students, and parents, standardized testing becomes a grueling barrage of tests with little to no reward for all the students’ hard work. Furthermore, the foundation of the endless test score misunderstandings, come from the fact that they only test a minimal amount of knowledge and skill rather than a direct or extensive measure of educational achievement (Koretz 9). It would be impossible to test students on their entire learning career but testing random bits and pieces that can easily be memorized proves nothing besides students’ stamina. Likewise, the fact that government agencies believe that one individual test of insubstantial value should determine the success rate of schools or students is inhumane. Humans are creatures of errors, the idea that a multiple choice test testing something that could be a star student’s worse topic seems preposterous.

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Standardized tests have been a part of American education since the mid-1800s. Many people believe that standardized tests are reliable and objective measures of student’s achievements because without them, policy makers would have to rely on tests scored by individual schools. Others, however, believe standardized testing has not improved student achievement, according to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), passed in 2002. Clearly, standardized tests are neither fair nor objective and that excessive testing undermines the ability to produce innovators. In this essay, I will argue that standardized testing in public schools is not effective.

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