Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

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Standardized testing has become something extremely familiar to students, teachers, and parents across the country. There are now more and more varieties of standardized tests for a student to complete in order to continue on with their education. It seems as though governments at all levels are pushing students to succeed on all of these tests but do not realize the amount of strain that these tests place on just about everyone. There are some students who perform well on standardized tests and some who do not perform well. The students who perform well on these tests are not necessarily the best students in the classroom while, the students who perform poorly are not necessarily the worst students in the classroom either. In my opinion, I do not believe that standardized tests accurately measure a person’s ability to perform in a classroom. I think that one’s abilities are measured by one’s background, skills, and qualities. Students that grow up in families that are troubled in some aspect of life are already at a disadvantage for the standardized tests. …show more content…

Standardized tests are written by people regardless of being scored by machines there is still the underlying subjectivity that is created by allowing people to write the questions (Kohn). I have never thought about this aspect of standardized testing prior to reading this article; however, this now brings to mind the concept that these tests are already set to present a set outcome prior to anyone taking them. Who writes these standardized tests? I think that the vast majority of the time these tests are written by upper-middle class, white persons in society. There presents a disadvantage already for minorities since they are typically the ones lacking in the analytical skills that are tested through the multiple choice aspects of standardized