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High Stakes Testing Effects

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Testing and schools go hand in hand, and they generally have a positive impact. High stakes testing has become vital for public schools; consequently, high-stakes testing has risen and spread like a bad case of the flu.[PP3] High stakes testing is detrimental to American education due to the accountability, course favoritism, and negative attitude it brings to school systems.
A major creditor to the evolution of high stakes testing is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was enacted in 1965 to help fund school districts and assist minority groups in achieving a proper education. The ESEA was revamped into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. The NCLB Act increased federal involvement by doubling the accountability …show more content…

There are so many results for a single test that does not even evaluate a student’s knowledge accurately. A single bad day could be disastrous to a student’s career, and a day of lucky guessing can float them by another year. Teachers are “graded” on their class’s results, so if a teacher’s class does poorly, that teacher may have an intervention coming.[PP1] Some people have even advocated for teachers’ pay and job security to be based upon the results of testing(“High-Stakes Test Definition”). Schools are given “grades” as well, and funding is based on them. Colleges and jobs review past testing scores to determine whether a student is worthy of their time. A student’s testing history will follow them throughout his or her life, making the tests truly “high …show more content…

The strict and narrow subject focus leads to numb disinterest as whatever a student may be interested in is suddenly discouraged in the face of passing tests. Schools, academically, have been reduced to just learning to take high stakes tests, generally in a standardized form. The majority of standardized tests are multiple choice questions, which can be taken without a single thought. There is essentially no effort required for the tests, compared to projects or essays. On the flip side, simple mistakes or a bad day can lead to bad results. A student may deem the entire year a failure if he or she failed that one test. Continue that trend for a few years, and school itself seems useless. If school is useless, why waste time there? According to the results Audrey Amrein and David Berliner recorded, “sixty-three percent of the states with high school graduation tests posted decreases in the average age of students who took the GED exam after the high-stakes tests were implemented” (“The Effects on High-Stakes Testing…”). With the amount of accountability and strict course direction, the decreasing age at which drop outs are happening is not surprising. When low scoring students drop out, the over all average of scores goes up, leading to a seemingly better school, when in fact its students are just giving up; most of the students dropping out are the ones falling under the

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I applaud the American Evaluation Association (AEA) in taking a strong stance on the deleterious effects of high stakes testing, especially going so far as to promulgate their reasons and concerns. It is obvious from the statement that the AEA supports the importance of testing and accountability in improving education, but finds the current testing manipulation environment to be harmful for any positive improvements in education. Specifically, how the monolithic testing focus has increased dropout rates, created cultural insensitivity, turned the community against teachers and administrators, and driven curriculum writing with a myopic focus, of teaching to the test. In addition, the AEA highlights other adverse effects of narrowing the focus

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The tests aren’t very accurate, sure you know how to fill in a bubble, but you don’t learn how to think for yourself. If the answer's not a b c or d you don’t know how to answer it. Standardized test are seriously crippling our critical thinking skills. Now the tests interfere with seniors eligibility to graduate. Students wait in agony for the results of these tests to come in and it adds more stress to an

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As a result, some schools are finding it tough to score above average on these test giving teachers no option, but to focus solely on learning outcomes that meet high stake test requirements. Additionally, students with low test score were always pressured by their teacher to achieve high test, scores and when they did not produce higher results, some educator, believed, if they punished the student they would become more serious with schooling and work hard to avoid the pressure or humiliating punishments (Hurley, 2007). I used to be an advocate of high stakes testing, but now I oppose high stakes testing sine I have seen first hand myself the damage it does to a student. Also, I several educators and professional use high stakes test results as a single indicator for measuring a person's competence or determining their future outcome, even though research has proven these tests is highly

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Standard testing is a very controversial and important subject because it deals with the progression of the American education system. The practice of these assessments has been highly scrutinized not only for the way it has changed the format of classrooms, but also for its accuracy, pressure, and abundance. In 2001, standardized testing became federally mandated through the No Child Left Behind Act by former president George Bush Jr. According to research from the Council of the Great City Schools, students have been taking “an average of 113 tests from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade” (K. Hefling). These numbers have increased to the point where parents have opted for their children to not attend standardized exams.

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As “Education week 's” Ron Wolk’s has said, “The system failed to educate them adequately, and now it punishes them for not being educated. " Ron Wolk is stating that with a school district failing to educate its students, these students have to pay the price by failing the test. High Stakes testing may also affect the district. Low scores could result in the reorganization of schools or a shift of resources to charter schools or private-school vouchers. Who knew that one test could severely damage a community and school

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Standardized Testing: Making College Admissions “Fair” Every year , the daunting prospect of undergoing standardized testing brings anxiety to thousands of high school students, and for good reason: a student’s performance on standardized college admission exams - most importantly, the ACT and SAT - is a major determinant in deciding where they will go to college. For decades, such standardized tests have been universally accepted as part of the admissions process: proponents argue, as Syverson (2007) explains, that such tests are the only way of standardizing college admissions when students from different schools have such widely varying profiles. However, in the past several decades a growing anti-testing movement has begun to poke holes

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Over two hundred parents claim to not let a student go through standardized testing. The earliest records of standardized testing come from China, for the subjects of philosophy and poetry. America “copied” the European education system. In the early 20th century, immigrants took “standardized tests”. To determine possible career and where each person stood socially.

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The idea that one test can accumulate all of one student’s academic abilities is no longer accurate. Today, the standardized tests that are used not only discriminate against the non wealthy families, it also is not an accurate reading of all of one’s abilities in and out of school. The tests also have become such a huge focus in the classroom that it is beginning to take away the process of learning in a classroom and being replaced with memorization to get good test scores. The standardized tests do not need to disappear all together, however the tests need a lot of revising if the states continue to use them as they do

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Many teachers fail to differentiate what is important and what is not. To be easy to grade, tests cannot measure higher order thinking. Critical thinking often gets left behind and memorization has taken over. Many students just simply don’t perform well on tests, but with these standards schools are held to it puts alot of stress on teachers who then push it onto their students. According to a psychology teacher, Melissa Hurst states that standardized test scores are greatly influenced by non academic factors, such as fatigue and attention span.

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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,

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Collateral Damage of Standardized Testing State mandated standardized testing has become a way of life for teachers and students alike in the recent years. “The No Child Left Behind era has seen a huge expansion of standardized testing and misuse of tests” (How Standardized Testing Damages Education). Schools use tests to guide curriculum, teaching, and promotion. Although there are certain benefits of the testing system, the cons heavily outweigh the pros. The failing system that is in place in most schools is harming students, teachers, and the future generations to come.

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The modern standardized testing system makes our society seem like it is getting smarter, but in reality our nation’s children are just being taught to pass a test. Teachers do not want to lose their jobs because of their student’s test scores, so they have began to teach them what is on the test so that their test scores will be better. This seems like a logical solution, but life is not about passing a multiple choice test or writing a good essay in a short amount of time. Life tests people in hands on ways and in situations people have to make instantaneous decisions. What our nation’s kids need to be learning is how to pass the tribulations of their upcoming life, they are the future of our nation, and if all they are taught is to pass a test then our nation has

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It is discouraging to think that the intent of standardized testing was to promote educational excellence, while the introduction of standardized testing to students has actually had the opposite effect. How do you define student achievement? Many people think standardized testing is the answer. These exams are otherwise known as “high-stakes tests” because the outcome of these tests are often extremely significant for a student’s future. Since 1994, when states were first required to develop their own tests, standardized testing has been used to measure the performance of students.

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Schools are giving out too many standardized tests. It’s not only robbing them of their time, but it’s also causing stress and anxiety and going into far levels. Students need to be focusing on their learning academics and preparing for their future. Taking unuseful tests are not only pointless, but they put too many kids/teens into anxiety and even depression.

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Standardized testing can cause a lot of stress on both educators and students. Very good teachers quit teaching every day because of how much stress is on them to prepare students to perform on standardized tests. They feel a considerable amount of pressure to improve testing scores. According to NEAToday say that "Despite the elevated level of overall satisfaction, nearly half (45 percent) of surveyed member teachers have considered quitting because of standardized testing". Students especially feel the stress when there is something meaningful tied to them meaning that some parents threaten to take away something that they value

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