Parents and education officials in the United States have a growing concern that the children in their public-school systems are being taught how to take tests instead of being taught the lesson plans that they should be learning. Increased standardized testing is having a negative effect on the nation’s public-schools by reducing teaching time and producing lower tests scores than countries with less standardized testing than the United States.
In a recent study of some of the largest districts in the nation, it was found that the number of unnecessary tests that are being given to children in the United States has risen in the past decade. Students take 112 state-mandated tests between pre-kindergarten and the end of their 12th grade year. This is not including the tests that each teacher gives for individual subjects. Third-world countries, such as Vietnam and South Asia, outperformed the United States on the Program for International Student Assessment. The nation was outranked by 38 countries in math, 24 in science, and 22 in reading. The countries that rank over the U.S only take 3 tests during their
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Jeffrey Cipriani, a second grade teacher from Boston, stated that it takes him three weeks to test each of his students individually on a test that required by the school district and not state-mandated. Robert Schaeffer works for a non-profit organization that is critical of standard testing. He believes that the nation’s students, “…prepare for the tests to prepare for the tests to prepare for the tests.” The results of the study show no correlation between the amount of testing in a district and the way they perform on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test given every two years to each state. Many of the public-school teachers agree on one thing – the nation cannot assess their way to academic