Cost Of Standardized Testing Essay

While there are many upsides to standardized education, there are also a lot of negative factors to take into consideration. One such factor is the cost of standardized testing. In order to comply with federal regulations, states must create exams that test the national standards. Since this is a huge undertaking, each state will contract a testing expert, such as Pearson, to create and print the exams (Chingos, 2012). In fact, around $4 billion “dollars in annual global sales comes from [Pearson’s] North American education division” (Simon, 2015). The cost of creating and distributing these exams alone is estimated to be around $1.7 billion dollars annually, money that could be used to raise teacher or support staff salaries (Chingos, 2012). This is especially concerning to some Americans because taxpayer dollars are used to fund the school system, and thus millions of their dollars goes to these big corporations (Mulholland, 2015).

In a study published by the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley in 2007, standardized tests scores were proven to be not the greatest predictor of success in college, but instead high school grade point averages correlated with higher grades in college (Geiser, & Santelices, 2007). In another study, finding found that SAT scores were even poorer predictors of college success in minority students (Hoffman, & Lowitzki, 2005). Once again, high school grade point averages were shown to be better predictors of good grades in college (Hoffman, & Lowitzki, 2005). While SAT’s might have been created to help predict a student’s aptitude for success in college, it is proven that they do not accomplish that