Arguments Against Standardized Testing

At one point in life, every single person has received and education of some sort whether it be from schooling or a parent teaching you how to make scrambled eggs. Whether you liked it or not, you can not name a time in life when there was just no school. We credit Horace Mann for coming up with our current education system all the way back in 1837 after he became Secretary of Education in Massachusetts. At first, schools were these things that you used to pass on knowledge from one generation to another. They still are when you look at them today, but the means by which schools are teaching nowadays are not good. We have these things known as standardized testing which is not the most popular thing among students. What standardized testing

He suggested that public schools in the Boston area should have children prove their knowledge through written tests. The goal was to find and replicate the best teaching methods possible so that all children could have equal opportunities (Maan). Although the idea of standardized testing sounds good, that’s the only good thing about it. Since then, this thought has gone downhill. What was and idea to give children equal opportunities became a way to give certain individuals better opportunities. 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

One of the most common complaints you will hear in schools aside from complaining about how teachers won’t curve their grade up 80 percent is, “ When am I going to use this in real life?” It’s a valid question after all. Nobody wants to waste their time doing things that they will never know in life. I as a student have felt this way on many occasions. I may not be the best in math, but it’s not because I don’t understand what I am learning. It is more me realizing that this stuff is not used in real life unless you are a math teacher. The problem 's not really that schools don’t teach true education, but rather that the instructors do no teach it. Instructors teach what they are told to teach. Many of them won’t go above and beyond because there is nothing in it for them. They can’t get paid more or get extra special treatment as seen in the documentary Waiting for Superman. The film follows a group of children trying to get a better education so that they can get out of their rough neighborhoods or be successful in life. The fact that there are so many people working so hard to have a chance in life is sad. Why aren’t all schools succeeding? It’s the