Standardized Testing Analysis

Michelle Obama once said, “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I would not be here. I guarantee you that.” Standardized testing began a long time ago in China. It was a basic form to determine the eligibility for positions in the government of the ruling class. A standardized test is an analysis that is overseen and scored in a scheduled manner. In 2001 President George W. Bush passed the ‘No Child Left Behind’ education reform, which expanded the state mandated standardized testing and assesses the schools performance. Standardized testing is not a proper way to measure the abilities of students. Students will take numerous standardized tests that they become lazy thus they will not receive proper results.

Students face different situations every day. Occasionally they might be facing problems in their homes or at school, making them have an off day which makes their performance suffer. Stated in the article ‘Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing’, standardized testing evaluates a students performance on one particular day and doesn’t take into account the external factors. Numerous students understand the content of the material, nevertheless they do not do well on the test (Envy at Work, 1). This makes it difficult to positively determine if the child showed their true abilities or not. Which proves that depending on the day and the mindset of the students, their test results will greatly vary hindering the students true

The information that they know might be different from what’s on the test or they might not be familiar with certain information about the test since they’ve never heard of it, and consequently they lose points for something they had no control over. In the article ‘Standardized Testing: Good point and Bad’ Maggie says that a 5th grader, she tutored didn’t know what a recipe was and if a test were to ask or mention a recipe she would be at a disadvantage, as most 5th graders know what that is. There’s no way of knowing for sure that every child being tested has the amount of background knowledge needed for the test (Margie, 1). It’s not that the students aren’t smart enough, it’s just that not all of them will know key information needed for the test. In the article ’12 Vital Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing’ it says that there isn’t a test that can address all he factors that accurately measure what’s been learned. There’s no way to adequately compare the types of knowledge that each child has about a subject, especially when their environments are different thus the students are more likely to retain information utmost important to them. Students socioeconomic class, different cultural background, and their geographical locations all factor into how well they would do on the test (Lombardo, 1). There’s no way students know