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Arguments Against Standardized Testing

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In today’s world standardized tests has become a necessity of the education system in the United States for many years. Standardized testing is described as in the dictionary as any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from a common bank of questions, in the same way, and that is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of the individual . This need for testing was due to the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act. The need for standardized testing according to the no child left behind act is to hold the teachers and schools accountable for the results the students produce. Standardized testing is not the best …show more content…

Intelligence is described as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, and obedience is described as compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority. Many people in America do not agree with the test and what they measure . In a 2001 study published by Brookings Institution, said that 50-80% of test improvements were temporary meaning that the students did not really learn or their education was not improved it just so happened that the testee did better in testing that year and they did not learn anything. Also the test only measures a small amount of what makes education rich and meaningful in many ways. Dr. Gerald W. Bracey said “ standardized test cannot measure qualities such as “ creativity , critical thinking , resilience , motivation ,persistence , curiosity , endurance , reliability , enthusiasm , empathy , self discipline , leadership , civic sense of beauty , sense of wonder , honesty ,and integrity.” All of these things are a part of what makes education everything it is. The fact that standardized testing is only testing things like reading , english and math means that it is missing an entire platform of information that a student learns in school. Some students have talents that are also not tested by the majority of standardized test do not measure like artistic and musical skill that are often taught in school. If the state is going to force …show more content…

This quote emphasizes the fact that testing is taking away from the time teachers need. Also a major part that must be brought up in the conversation about the time being taken away is instruction time is being consumed by monotonous test preparation. Schools are more concerned on if the students do well on standardized test not if they really know what's going in the classroom or better yet if they understand any part at all of the information that is being taught in the class. The time that is being spent on preparing for standardized is 738 minutes in 3 weeks . that is approximately 12 hours and 30 minutes and that time is only accumulated into 3 weeks. That is and entire average class period and three hours to spear of time wasted on preparing the student to take standardized tests that does not directly help or affect the students in any

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1754 Words | 8 Pages

These standardized tests are severely damaging the educational system. There is an extremely high budget, and high stakes achievement that rides on your test scores. Although all states use some form of standardized testing, the testing proves to be inefficient, and should be eliminated. As stated above standardized testing proves to be very stressful on the test takers.

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462 Words | 2 Pages

According to a quote from ProCon, by Gerald W. Bracey, PhD, a researcher of education, "qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include 'creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness,

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566 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized testing is a very well known topic for a lot of people. Many people believe they are helpful to measure students intelligence and academic performance. Just as many people believe it is unfair, stressful, and affects the school and state as a whole. Standardized testing is an unfair approach to measure each student’s academic performance; and is something we should get rid of.

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565 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized tests don’t value diversity. There are a wide range of differences in the people who take standardized tests: they have different cultural backgrounds, different levels of proficiency in the English language, different learning and thinking styles, different family backgrounds, different past experiences. These tests don’t value creativity, individuality, or the learning styles of the children taking them. In David

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1060 Words | 5 Pages

The article “Standardized Testing: Harmful to Educational Health” written by Monty D. Neil, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, and Medina J. Noe, a consultant for Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color, explains that standardized tests “assume that all individuals perceive information and solve problems the same way” (Neil and Noe 692). Not every student processes information the same way, which limits the effectiveness of standardized testing. When the test is only created to be beneficial to one kind of student, it marginalizes everyone else. Just because a student does not perform well on a test that is not made for the way they think, it does not mean they are any less intelligent. It only means that they do not process information in the same way as another student that scored higher on the same test.

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992 Words | 4 Pages

Standardized testing is taking away valuable learning time from students that is being replaced with test preparation (Palackal). Palackal does not think that standardized tests should have the ability to shut down a school building because teachers are then encouraged to cheat. The amount of playtime for kindergarteners had decreased and is being replaced with standardized test prep. “These are children no more than the age of 6 preparing for an assessment they will start taking three years later in the third grade!” (Plackal).

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609 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized tests have caused much trouble for students taking them, but does the state know that there are other options? These tests have become more and more important over the years, for example, they judge your college future and even your grades. We should decrease the amount of standardized tests we have because they are not accurate representations of people's knowledge, they are discriminatory towards people with disabilities, and they take up time from learning. Standardized tests are not accurate representations of our knowledge as a society. These tests are all about memorization and memorization is not knowledge, it’s how well your brain remembers and this is not a necessity.

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1327 Words | 6 Pages

Standardized testing is a way to identify kids who are smarter than others and have the most potential to do great things in life. Those other children don’t have as firm of chances and don’t get the resources they would need to succeed because it would be a waste of time and resources. Although efforts have been made to better our education systems and specifically our standardized testing methods since the 1920’s, the results clearly show that they are not working when seeing that the United States of America is 24th in literacy, 17th in educational performance, and 2nd in ignorance according to research from IPSOS Mori. At least we are top ten in

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1345 Words | 6 Pages

Why Standardized Testing is not an Accurate Depiction of Intelligence Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines standardized testing as a test of intelligence whose reliability has been established by obtaining an average score of a significantly large number of individuals for use as a standard of comparison (Merriam-Webster). This means that it is a test used for to determine someone’s intelligence by comparing scores to an average obtained from a large population. Currently, sixty percent of colleges say that test scores are an important factor in student admissions (Morse). Standardized tests are traditionally multiple-choice but can also have true-false, short-answer, and essay questions. When people hear “standardized test” they tend to immediately

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812 Words | 4 Pages

Although there is a lot of emphasis on standardized tests, it can be shown that they are not helping to improve the intelligence of students all throughout America. Testing is stressful to the superiority of people in today’s world. According to the article Teen People “The most important part of education should be to make sure that kids are filled with the desire to change the world and that comes from passionate teaching and learning, not from test taking” (Teen

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1309 Words | 6 Pages

Therefore, it does not represent their intelligence because a student’s performance can range from day to day (Procon.org, 2014). Two major external factors that are not taken into consideration are the students testing ability and testing anxiety (Procon.org, 2014). For example, a student may perform poorly on the annual standardized test because he or she has trouble concentrating for long periods of time, not because he or she did not understand the material. Another external factor would be a student near you has caught a cold and cannot stop coughing; as distracting as that is, there is nothing you nor the teacher can do about it. Although the tests are “standardized” so every aspect should be the same for all students, it is impossible to eliminate all external

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1485 Words | 6 Pages

Many years ago, tests were given to place students into classes and determine students who needed additional help. Today, tests are used to judge the success or failure of students’ teachers and schools (Kohn, 2000). According to a new study from MIT neuroscientists working with education researchers at Harvard University and Brown University ‘Tests are designed to measure the knowledge and skills that students have acquired in school students who have the highest gains on test scores do not exhibit the ability to analyse abstract problems and think logically ‘. This just shows that the students who excel on such test do not need to be intelligent. Standardized tests tend to measure the temporary acquisition of facts and skills, including the skill of test-taking itself, more than genuine understanding but rather; evaluate how fast a student can answer questions correctly (Kohn, 2000).

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445 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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1191 Words | 5 Pages

School’s are using standardized testing for the wrong reason. “A standardized test is any examination that’s administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests” (Popham, 1999). The most common examples of aptitude tests are the SAT and the

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919 Words | 4 Pages

When students could be learning meaningful information, teachers are using up that time and giving them tests and exams. Although, we want to be blaming teachers, states and schools are supposed to give out mandatory tests. Who is to blame? According to washington article post, Valerie Strauss, says “The average student in America’s big-city public schools takes some 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and the end of 12th grade — an average of about eight a year, the study says. ” The state is to blame.

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