Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

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

For example, schools are no longer trying to create informed and well-rounded citizens; instead, they are creating a mentality in students that the only knowledge they need to learn is the ones they’ll use to pass the “government-mandated standardized tests.” This is turn diminishes a child’s motivation, learning ability, and even the classroom curriculum our schools provide. (Solley) If you asked anyone, they will tell you that this is not okay. Our schools should be the best in the world, not slowly crumbling until there’s nothing left. Author and social critic Peter Sacks (199) describes the dangers of test-orientated classrooms: “Test-driven classrooms exacerbate boredom, fear, lethargy, promoting all manner of mechanical behaviors on the part of teachers, students, and schools, and bleed school children of their natural love of learning." (Solley) Again why would we want this for our children? For our schools? For our country? As well as this there are many studies that show test-driven classrooms and schools have the highest amounts of repeating a grade and dropout rates. For instance, in only Louisiana, “...between 10 and 15 percent of 4th- and 8th-graders were retained in 2000 because of failure to pass the state's high-stakes test.” (Solley) In Florida as well, in 2003 more than 43,000

A few months ago, I talked to the President of Holy Cross College in Notre Dame because they recently decided to make an SAT optional-policy. After I asked about the aftermath of the new policy, their President gushed about how it was a fantastic decision and how Holy Cross had become more geographically and ethnically diverse, and how the quality of their applications dramatically improved. (McDermott) When I asked why they decided to create this policy, the answer I got was what I was expecting all along. They wanted their students to be rewarded for their “good choices and habits throughout their high school career, and not judged on the basis of a single test.” (McDermott) An idea that is commonly used to justify abolishing standardized tests and definitely one that we could all relate too. The diversity that their President talked about was evident in the statistics. “Since 2006 the percentage of first-year students admitted from outside New England went from 46 percent to 50 percent; and the proportion of African-American, Latin American, Asian-American, and Native American students went from 17 percent to 21 percent. The three classes since 2006 are also statistically stronger, with more students taking the most-rigorous course loads available at their high schools.” (McDermott) Also, I decided to