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Arguments Against Standardized Testing

657 Words3 Pages

“93% of studies on student testing, including the use of large-scale and high-stakes standardized tests, found a “Positive effect” on student achievement.” State testing has been around the U.S since the mid-1800’s. Therefor, We should have state testing because it holds schools accountable for what they need to teach their students, along with giving objective measures.

To start things off, standardized testing holds schools accountable for what the need to teach their students.To make it understandable, Ohio is starting to implement, or put into effect, a school accountability system. This system would include “student growth” papers to see where your student has grown. These are also in college-admissions results. Basically, these are all based on standardized testing. Therefor, all these “accountability” measures inform policymakers to determine which schools need to close down because they are not teaching their students the needed curriculum. Furthermore, if the school is not teaching the students the right tools for the test, that school gets shut down(1). Along with this, …show more content…

But if you give every 8 grade E.L.A teacher in Modesto the same paper to grade, the results will come in drastically different. Why? Because every teacher is different. One teacher might say a traditional essay is 5 paragraphs, while another says its 6 paragraphs. Basically, teacher grading really depends on the teacher. This is why we have standardized testing(1). To add on, people say that teachers have to “teach the test” or teach what the students need to know. This causes teachers to do this because their job depends on it. Yes, teachers should teach the students what they need to know for the test, it is part of their job(2). If the school or teacher isn’t, then the teacher gets fired, or the school gets shut

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449 Words | 2 Pages

In my opinion, public educational curriculums and accountability guidelines should be established at the state and local levels where parents/guardians play an integral role in the decision making process. I do not believe standardized tests alone are an accurate measure of a student’s knowledge; their classwork, projects, and literary works also represent a student’s talent and capabilities. In agreement with Robert Schaeffer, a representative for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, that federal mandated programs such as the No Child Left Behind and The Race to The Top high-stakes tests foster the temptation to cheat because they serve as means to both punish and reward students, teachers, and principals based solely upon test scores (Schaeffer,

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1212 Words | 5 Pages

They argue that the fact that the results of this test can be seen by all parties involved in the education system allows for accountability on the parts of all involved if test results are not where they should be. They argue that this helps educators by ensuring that all, fourth graders for instance, are being taught the same material and are being tested with the same standardized test across the country. This is seen as being extremely beneficial in that it allows for specific districts and school to make the required adjustments in any area that they fall short off versus the national results. It is also seen by these proponents as helping teachers minimize time wasted trying to put together their curriculum by giving them guidance on what to teach allowing them to focus on educating the children under their

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1030 Words | 5 Pages

In order for teachers to do their jobs, they need educational tools. However, in many large school districts, they “lack important teaching tools, such as computers and up-to-date textbooks” (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). As a result of this, teachers are held accountable for the success/failure of standardized test. On the upside, both jobs are generally independent work without the supervision of a higher ranking individual within the field.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

Although some might say standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations, the teachers can not make students do well on a test. Standardized testing has a stigma that if one does not do well on the tests then their future will be at stake and they will probably not do well in life. This is simply not true, taking one moment, one day, one hour of someone's life and making them take a test will not show you how well a student will do in the future. The tests

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1130 Words | 5 Pages

Even though many students absolutely hate them, state assessments are a big part of the American education system. Everyone has taken a standardized test at some point in their life, and almost everyone has done poorly on one. They are primarily used as a measurement of how well students learn, but are they truly accurate? There are strong arguments on both sides, which has started a heated conflict about the productiveness of these tests. Standardized testing has been around for many years, starting in Imperial China where it was intended to determine a person’s aptitude for a government position (“Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students’ Abilities?”).

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462 Words | 2 Pages

Teachers should be able to teach students, not for the sake of passing an exam, but for the sake of expanding their existent knowledge. There are many students in the state of Texas, as well as the entire nation, that have had their potential overlooked because they did not meet the expectations of standardized testing. Although students are indeed placing emphasis on higher scores for a standardized test, they apparently do not retain the information long enough to make a lasting effect on their knowledge. This is according to a 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution which found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and "caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in

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734 Words | 3 Pages

In fact 70 percent of educators surveyed in 2015 say that tests are not developmentally appropriate. Furthermore many students suffer a great deal of stress because of standardized tests. What’s most shocking is that instead of lower income schools getting better after tests were implemented they have actually gotten worse. School could essentially be taught by robots. At this point most teachers in my district have to teach a curriculum that is developed by the state instead of their own curriculum.

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425 Words | 2 Pages

Standardized Testing Are you tired of the way we do testing? Well, I am. Some people think that we should keep the way we do testing. While everybody else thinks that we should change the way we test. I think we should change the way of testing because it causes stress to lots people.

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429 Words | 2 Pages

The Standardized test, similar to the STAAR, can be a nightmare for some students. It should not be allowed in Texas due to many reasons such as wasting precious education time, not promoting students to the next grade, causing stress, provoking students to take drugs, and not determining students’ full potential. Standardized tests should not continue because they provide inaccurate feedback about students and destroy their confidence for their future education and life. Although the standardized test shows if the student should get promoted or not, the test lacks showing the full potential of some students because it judges a student based on a few skills. For example, if a student is good in classwork but is a bad test taker,

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1027 Words | 5 Pages

Can a singular test really determine the understanding, potential, and creativity of a student? Standardized tests are often seen as indicators of college and job success, but in fact, it only determines which students are good at taking tests and which aren't. The reason why I chose standardized testing as my issue for my project is because it is an issue that I can personally connect with and because I believe that standardized testing should be entirely scrapped and should be replaced with better methods of testing a student’s potential, creativity, and understanding. In this essay, I will go over why standardized testing is a bad method of testing students' education and a few methods we can use to help fix this issue. A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored by the state

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885 Words | 4 Pages

Standardized Testing. Mutter that simple phase in any school in America, and you will likely get a variety of reactions, from disgust to fear. Somehow, a system that was placed to ensure that there would be no child left behind has created a situation that forces many schools to do just that. Students feel that the weight of the world is on their shoulders, because if they mess up, it might lead to their teacher being fired, or their school losing funding. Many people believe that children do not think about these types of problems, but they see the effect their work can have, and blame themselves for it.

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1802 Words | 8 Pages

Although this may sound, effective the NCLB discredits this notion by allowing almost all states now to receive waivers that allow them to miss key elements of the law without any punishments. Moreover, opponents in favor of the law may agree that the increased testing has created an environment where teachers teach to the exam eliminating unneeded materials. If you believe more rigor means more, or better, learning the reality is harder tests do not make kids smarter. Unfortunately, the love of teaching and learning is being diminished by the drills and worksheets used to get ready for “the big test”. The idea of using standardized testing to evaluate student academic performance is not new, and as of yet has shown no measurable increase in student performance.

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501 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized testing is a topic that is controversial among educators, the government, and practically everyone who has a child or is a student. Some people believe that standardized testing is the best way to gather a consensus on how students are performing. Others believe that testing is necessary, but it should not be the main focus in the classroom. It is difficult to gage on whether teaching quality is affected by these tests, because teaching happens behind closed doors, and teachers are not observed daily.

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1673 Words | 7 Pages

Juliet, with her pencil in hand, is walking into the classroom reviewing all the information she has been studying diligently for the past month. Nerves bubble in her stomach; this test will determine her future. Standardized testing often determines if one passes a grade, or if the student is “smart enough” to take advanced classes. Tests are administered multiple times a year to evaluate students’ achievements and the performance of their schools. According to Barner and Slate, “U.S. education has steadily progressed toward a more standardized testing and one-size-fits-all approach to prepare students for life after K-12” (qtd. in Scogin et al. 42).

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1057 Words | 5 Pages

A local teacher said “some principles like standardized test because they can make they’re school look good which equals more money. Most teachers don’t like standardized tests because it makes them have to teach to the test instead of teaching the curriculum. It also puts a lot of pressure on the teachers because in some states they’re tests scores decide on how much they get paid, if they get to say in that grade level, or if they get moved to a different grade level because their scores were better for that grade level” (source 1). A teacher that teaches at a local school said “the state testing I had used for much of my career was severely flawed (STAR) I did

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