Opting Out of Standardized Tests Isn’t the Answer
In the present era, people talk a lot about education structure and its standards in a region and its effects on various classes of people in that region. It is so because education is the primary thing that decides many facets of life and society. With respect to that, the annual standardized tests taken by school students is known for its importance as it is supposed to measure the progress in meeting national academic standards. One of the articles from New-York Times discusses about the issue of students’ aversion towards taking the standardized tests in the state of New-York because of the test pattern difficulties. It also ponders around the adverse effects of a large number of students
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It is known that (from the article) Federal law requires that at least 95 percent of eligible students take the annual tests, and districts that fall short may face penalties, including a loss of federal aid in that region. So, the choice to opt-out of standardized tests if given may prove unfair to people who are still interested in taking standardized tests and also undermine the funding opportunities to facelift the education quality in a particular region. Even if 6 percent (very less percent) of eligible students opt-out of tests in a particular district, it will produce adverse effects on federal aid allotment to that region. This vital relation between test taking population and federal aid allotment should be considered to deny the choice for students to opt-out of standardized tests in a region. It was also told that most of the people who opt out of the tests were white and come from wealthy or middle-class communities. As per federal law, the federal funding will not be available for minority people even if they are ready to take tests because of wealthier people opting to out of the tests. So, the choice to opt-out of tests will prove unfair to minority people in one or other way unless the Federal Law gets …show more content…
If the students take standardized tests, the national academic standards can be maintained and necessary federal aid gets sanctioned to the region with no hindrance. Moreover, the standardized tests serve as an important tool to keep up the equality in the society by closing the achievement gap between different communities. On the other hand, the authority should also find ways to solve the disconnection between classroom teaching and question framing methods to help the students to score better in standardized