The Simpsons Standardized Testing

Standardizing and The Simpsons The Simpsons created by Matt Groening has been a long-standing television show that millions upon millions have enjoyed for its humor, but The Simpsons has also brought an important issue up in many of its episodes; standardized testing in the American education system. The Simpsons present the real-life problem of standardized testing in a humorous way, even though the effects of the problem are not so funny. The Simpsons has gone through several specific issues within the general problem of standardized testing, and the issues that standardized testing create are the promotion of a cookie cutter education, a stifling of creativity and advancement, detrimental effects on a school 's funding and teacher salary,

He argues that "…too much emphasis is placed on standardized tests, and not much is being done to develop teachers in providing a balanced teaching and learning experience for learners" (139). Cordeur backs up his statement by saying that teachers are being taught to teach the test, which leads to inflated test scores (139). However, while test scores have risen, he believes that educational standards have decreased (139). The article then takes a closer look at standardized testing specifically in America, and Cordeur explains that many teachers have abandoned teaching material outside of the test material due to pressure from the District of Education and other outside sources to increase their scores (142). What standardized test scores are not measuring, and therefore what the teachers are not teaching, are the educational standards mentioned. Skills like writing, research, analysis, experimenting that are required for "real world" things like getting into college, or going into the job field (Cordeur 142). These teachers are teaching facts that are to be regurgitated onto multiple choice tests, and not how to use their knowledge for creative use and innovative

In The Simpsons episode "A Test Before Trying", the students must get a high enough score to keep funding and prevent the school from shutting down. Unfortunately, Bart fails his exam which shuts the school down. Not only were the students forced to go to other schools, but the teachers and faculty did not have a job anymore. In an article titled "Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea" by Morgan Hani, she discusses how teachers are pressured by higher faculty to teach the test material only to keep funding (70). To ensure that teachers do this, teachers get either punished for poor scores or bonuses for good scores (Morgan 70). This can be extremely unfair to teachers because of the diversity of students. Students who are non-English speakers and those who have special needs will often produce lower scores, and this factor is largely out of a teacher 's