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The importance of standardized tests
Importance of standardized tests
Does standardized testing have negative effects on education
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Standardized testing really took off after the no child left behind act of 2001. Since then the number of standardized tests has only gone up. Now even 2nd graders have to take standardized tests. More tests is the answer our government has for the problems with our education. Tests are not the solution, they are part of the problem.
This author agrees with President Obama saying that their are two many standardized test, which does not leave enough time for students to learn what they need to graduate. He goes one to Quote President Obama saying “Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble,” the president said. “So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing … to make sure that our kids are enjoying learning, that our teachers are able to operate with creativity, to make sure we are preparing our kids for a lifetime of
Standardized testing has not improved education in America. Standardized tests have been issued in schools all across the nation for years now. Some people like them and some people don’t. They do not help the student learn more information than they would without the tests. The U.S. has dropped from 18th highest scores in schools in the world to be in the 30’s on almost all of the subjects on the test.
In spite of the people who believe that standardized tests are a key factor to determine a student’s academic abilities, standardized tests distract students from their current studies, they are only designed for one way of learning and comprehending material, and they are biased to students. Standardized tests distract students from their current studies and take away any extra learning opportunities that they have to elaborate on a specific topic. Standardized tests take away time for students and teachers in the classroom to continue their studies or learn something with purpose
Even though many students absolutely hate them, state assessments are a big part of the American education system. Everyone has taken a standardized test at some point in their life, and almost everyone has done poorly on one. They are primarily used as a measurement of how well students learn, but are they truly accurate? There are strong arguments on both sides, which has started a heated conflict about the productiveness of these tests. Standardized testing has been around for many years, starting in Imperial China where it was intended to determine a person’s aptitude for a government position (“Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students’ Abilities?”).
Standardized tests are one of the most popular ways schools attempt to evaluate academic intelligence of students, school districts, and teachers. These tests are used more specifically to evaluate student performance in the education system by testing their abilities in mathematics, english and sciences. By giving every student the same test, they are setting a standard idea for how well every student should score on the test, such as the SAT or the ACT, no matter the school or educational process they are receiving. Allowing every student to take the exact same test, gives the state a way to generalize student’s academic intelligence without having to do much work to make the testing one hundred percent fair. Standardized testing in schools should no longer be required because it discriminates against the less wealthy families, does not effectively measure achievement and becomes a distraction to the student’s learning environment.
Going Against the Standard According to Tim Walker, “Only 14% of parents say standardized testing is important in measuring school effectiveness” (Walker). A standardized test is a test that is given in a consistent or “standard” manner. Standardized tests are designed to have consistent questions, administration procedures, and scoring procedures. When a standardized test is administered, it is done so according to certain rules and specifications so that testing conditions are the same for all test takers. They often provide some type of “standard score” which can help interpret how far a child score ranges from the average student (Johnson).
When has everything became about how well you do on a standardized test? (Interoggative sentence/rhetorical sentence) Okay students, today you’ll be taking the PARCC. Okay students, today you’ll be taking the AIRS. Okay students, today you’ll be taking the Explorer SAT.
Have you ever wondered if you could just bypass the ACT/SAT and go straight to college? There are many other high schoolers thinking the same. Many students dread taking the ACT/SAT but if we got rid of it you would not be able to see which college is best for you based on how you scored. Many colleges across the world have been toying with the idea of not using tests like the ACT and SAT as part of the admission process. Colleges should not stop using standardized tests as part of the admission process because they have been using them for many decades, they are available to any student worldwide no matter the economic area the student or their family is in, and they allow the student to show what they learned in high school.
For some, standardized tests become more than just the average little road block they are meant to be, they can become the wreck that changes one’s life. Standardized tests began all the way back in the 1800’s with the use heightening when the No Child Left Behind Act went into place in 2001, then mandating that all 50 states had to
In fact 70 percent of educators surveyed in 2015 say that tests are not developmentally appropriate. Furthermore many students suffer a great deal of stress because of standardized tests. What’s most shocking is that instead of lower income schools getting better after tests were implemented they have actually gotten worse. School could essentially be taught by robots. At this point most teachers in my district have to teach a curriculum that is developed by the state instead of their own curriculum.
I know you have challenging decisions to make since you just became the President of the United States. There’s probably more important things to worry about like ISIS, but this is important to the future generations of our country. From the age we have hit 5 years old we have gone to school, spending seven hours in a building using our brains to help us get an education. We are taking midterms, finals, SATS, ACTS, AIR tests, and everyday testing are just a few tests we take on average, but when is enough?
There is a doctor, Thomas Armstrong, that focuses on youth development, and he believes that standardized tests don’t help or let anyone, whether it’s teachers or students, improve. He wrote that “Standardized tests don’t provide any feedback on how to perform better. The results aren’t even given back to the teachers and students until months later, and there are no instructions provided by test companies on how to improve these test scores” (Armstrong). Since the test companies of standardized tests don’t give feedback to teachers and students, it is impossible for them to know what they need to work and improve upon. If students can’t improve their scores, they are stuck either staying in the same spot or downgrading in the education system.
School’s are using standardized testing for the wrong reason. “A standardized test is any examination that’s administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests” (Popham, 1999). The most common examples of aptitude tests are the SAT and the
Students leave school stressed and full of anxiety and its actually making a negative effect on their everyday life. Students get so overwhelmed that harming themselves is in the picture. The state needs to realize that students aren’t giving their 100% and they will never know their actual academic skills. So why give standardized test? Teachers need to focus on the future and teaching them skills they need in their everyday life.
