Arguments Against Standardized Testing

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. America is doing its students a disservice by assuming that the information they can gather from this test is worth the anxiety that the

True high-stakes standardized testing was begun in 2001, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, which was put into place to help make it so that all children would have an equal opportunity to learn, regardless of their race, ethnic background or their families’ income level. While their goals sound admirable, the problem began with the implementation of the act; they wanted to ensure that each child was at least proficient in the standards that they developed, so they decided that testing was the best way to do so (Aske, Connelly & Corman, 2013). The issue with this is that not all students excel at test-taking, and putting so much emphasis on it can cause a student severe stress and anxiety (Colwell, 2013). In 2009, Race to the Top was implemented, but instead of placing less emphasis on testing and more on learning, it made the stakes worse, ensuring that schools that had students who did not perform as well could be shut down, or individual teachers could be fired if they did not show what was considered to be appropriate progress in test scores, which might soon prove impossible since the optimal goal is to reach a level of 100 percent of the students in a school to the proficiency level (Tavakolian & Howell,

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that while both of these programs support such aims, they want to get them by forcing students to compete with each other. Where there is competition, there are winners and losers, which is incompatible with the priorities they have set forth, especially that there is no child left behind. In fact, when there is a competition with such high consequences, teachers cannot give the students who need help the aid they require. With these conflicting ideas, one has to be the primary goal, because they cannot both be implemented at the same time (Aske, et al. 2013). Unfortunately the winner, especially after the Race to the Top was put into effect, was the competitive portion, asking districts to battle for funding, and those districts that did not have the numbers would be removed from the equation, by closing the schools and having students moved to other areas (David,