Standard testing is a very controversial and important subject because it deals with the progression of the American education system. The practice of these assessments has been highly scrutinized not only for the way it has changed the format of classrooms, but also for its accuracy, pressure, and abundance. In 2001, standardized testing became federally mandated through the No Child Left Behind Act by former president George Bush Jr. According to research from the Council of the Great City Schools, students have been taking “an average of 113 tests from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade” (K. Hefling). These numbers have increased to the point where parents have opted for their children to not attend standardized exams.
Put simply, standardized tests are ones that require all test takers to answer the same questions, are scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, in order to compare the relative performance of individuals or groups of students, and are primarily associated with a large scale (Standardized). While the idea of the tests may be simple to understand, the controversy surrounding the issue becomes increasingly complex as politicians, business people, and teachers continue to debate the topic. For the purpose of this paper, two academic articles were chosen to display both sides of the
Although standardized testing has been around for many years, it has become an increasing problem within the past decade. Many teachers, students, and parents feel administering these tests waste time in the classroom and add unnecessary stress onto children. Much of pressure is put
On a sunny Saturday morning during the spring of my junior year, I was not sleeping in like most teenagers my age but rather sitting anxiously at a desk waiting for my SAT to be handed out. Test anxiety was consuming me as I was thinking about how this test was going to determine which colleges would accept me and which would not. Regardless, I ended up powering through and finishing my test. It was not until I received my test score two weeks later where I found myself looking at a number and feeling complete disappointment. I received an average score but could not help comparing myself to my other friends who had receive scores significantly higher than mine.
Jacob was forced to take the SAT test he felt super pressured because he has anxiety. Further into the test he started purposely breaking the lead of his pencil so he can get away from the test. but all the anxiety finally got to him and he blew up (not really) as he ripped the test in half walked out of the classroom Some people think that standardized tests are very beneficial but I am going to make it clear that standardized tests are actually bad for students and schools. Some reasons that support that standardized tests are harmful are that some kids might actually drop out of school because of these tests also, college preparation tests do very little to get you into or help prepare you for college.
FW #5 A better alternative to standardized testing would be to use student portfolios in order to assess learning and growth. “A student portfolio is a systematic collection of student work and related material that depicts a student's activities, accomplishments, and achievements in one or more school subjects”(Scherba de Valenzuela). Using this system wouldn’t require kids to miss classes to take standardized tests, it’s a better representation of a student's learning during the year, and It increases self-motivation to learn and grow. It doesn’t take them out of class to take the test.
In 2001, the President of the United State of America, George W. Bush, proposed legislation to start the “No Child Left Behind” act. The legislation was designed and written to attempt to aid children in disadvantaged communities and to reduce inequalities that existed within the public school system. Once the legislation was put into action later in 2001, the culture of primary and secondary education was altered drastically. The education system created a whole new means for assessing progress of students, teachers, and school districts as a whole. The main change came through the large increase of standardized testing.
As Sarah finished circling the question she was on, she looked at a question on a standardized test. The question stated, What are the elements that have a weight of 10? A: Hydrogen, Lithium, Boron. B: Helium, Silicon, Sulfur. C: Oxygen, Neon, Argon.
Shouldn’t we be teaching them life skills that they will need in the future? Shouldn’t we not put as much emphasis on standardized tests when it will not prepare our country’s adolescents for adulthood? Even our competitor, China, who was the champion of “one standardized test will change your whole life,” is moving away from that idea. According to the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Riff newspaper CJ Westerberg, “The Chinese are aggressively trying to move away from their ‘one exam determines your whole life’ mentality to become more American-like, promoting the originality and intellectual risk-taking so linked to America's knack for innovation, needed to be a world leader beyond the ‘world's factory.’” Ironically, the Chinese want to change
Do standardized tests and grades accurately measure how well a subject is learned, or do students just cram their brains with what they are taught for the standardized tests? Covering a small sample of the topic is not necessarily learning it, but rather ingesting the information and regurgitating it for a test and then forgetting the information right afterwards. Different learning styles also come into play here and many instructors fail to teach in ways that all students may understand, leaving some students ill-prepared and with the possibility of testing poorly, or even failing. It seems that over time, the original concept of being in school to learn how to learn was lost, and the need to know how to be tested was found, resulting in lower test scores, less individual creativity, and the overall diminished desire for students to want to learn and attend school.
Despite the evidence supporting the standardized testing benefits received through the arts, schools are still fighting back against educating their students in the arts, arguing that studying anything other than what is on a national standardized test is a waste of time, and will only impede good scores. Students are being conditioned in math, reading, technology, and science, and prepped for the standardized tests which will rank them among the nation’s best. The No Child Left Behind Act holds schools accountable for teaching the subjects which will appear on those nationwide tests, causing schools to lean towards standardized test prep, as opposed to a full education. A survey conducted in 2006 in the state of California, demonstrated that
In the United States today, education in very different from teacher to teacher and from school to school. I have attended 9 different schools in my almost 12 years in the public education system, and each one places different levels of emphasis on individuality, standardized testing and conformity. In my experience, I learned the math the best when I lived in Virginia, in the fifth grade, where, rather than focus on the standardized test guidelines, the best students went to a different classroom in which we did math that required more logic, practicality, and problem solving. These skills are still necessary in both my math class and my science science class, and I believe these skills have put me at a distinct advantage: I rarely struggle
When it comes to standardized tests, many students, parents, and teachers have strong opinions about how effective it is and how they feel about it. In 1998 Florida introduced it’s first standardized test, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) (Florida Department of Education; FLDOE). The FCAT consisted of various subjects for grades three to eleven to determine the students improvement toward meeting the Sunshine State Standards (SSS) (FLDOE). During the 2010-11 school year, Florida began the transition from the FCAT to the FCAT 2.0 and Florida End-of-Course (EOC) Assessments (FLDOE). Keep in mind that there were still certain grades and subjects taking the FCAT until the change was complete.
Student Sudhanshu Pandey, was a happy, normal teenage boy who didn’t look like he would succumb into depression. On march 4, Sudhanshu seemed unusually reluctant to go school. Later than day his parents found him in his room hanging from the ceiling fan. Sudhanshu left a note, explaining how all the pressure and stress in his life from test exams has taken over. Not only has Sudhanshu Pandey been depressed and stressed from testing, its all over the world.
A standardized test, according to W. James Popham of ASCD.org, is “any examination that is administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.” In standardized testing, examinees are instructed to precisely answer a specific set of questions, which are usually multiple-choices. Although standardized testing is believed to be an objective method to grade students, administers should understand that these tests are not only a waste of time, but also a waste of money. Standardized testing is irrelevant to a student’s education because it is an unreliable way to measure a student’s knowledge, causes stress, and hinders a student’s overall learning potential.
