Should Standardized Testing Be Abolished

While public education may not always be able to cater to everybody’s needs and design rules that would best meet all expectations demanded of it, there are a few things that could change with the way school is structured. Amongst the proposed changes includes the changing of school hours – pushed back and hour, longer breaks in between class, and less focus on standardized teaching with more focus on teaching the material in a way that invites critical thinking, problem solving, and learning to learn. These proposed changes are not pointless in nature and they could each have potentially beneficial effects on students in general. Considering that some of the top countries in education espouse similar ideas mentioned above (i.e. Finland), it

Despite the rise of more standardized testing in the United States in the past few decades, the US continues to place behind many other countries in international student assessments (30th in math compared to Finland’s 6th place). One of the reasons for standardized testing failing its goals in increasing student performance is that teachers are now on a rigid deadline with inflexible course material they must teach. Instead of taking the time to properly walk students through the steps of a problem and teaching them how to think on their own, only the information on the syllabus provided at the beginning of each class is taught. There is (usually) no room for creative and critical thinking as there is simply no time for it. Thus, we students become inundated with the expectations of learning something without properly understanding it, only to take a test at the end of the year that has no real meaning to us. I for one study the required material to the best of my ability and strive to understand it, but without proper guidance showing me how to think critically on my own, my efforts (I feel) are all but