President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 into law in early 2002. At first, it was used to determine whether or not a child needed extra help in their classes. Now standardized testing can determine whether or not a student graduates from high school. It is now under scrutiny, as some do not believe it is an effective way of testing students. Standardized testing does have its advantages, like giving teacher a guideline on what they should be teaching. Standardized testing does more harm than good, though. It forces teachers to “teach to the test”, robbing kids of other important areas of education, along with only evaluating how a student does on that particular day, not taking into account external factors. It also does not evaluate a student’s higher-level thinking. Our children’s future is at stake. America needs to find a better way of effectively measuring a student’s intelligence to ensure that its future is a bright one. Students need to be well equipped to get into college and, later, the work force. Standardized testing is not going to prepare them for either. Standardized testing should not be required because doing so would lead to better students …show more content…
Standardized testing is a way to see if children understand the basics of math, reading, and writing but it does not do so in a way that truly shows if the child is learning. For example, to get a better paying job than a clerical one, one must be good in algebra and geometry, which are both topics covered in standardized testing. “Businesses need people who can understand a simple formula, read a graph, and interpret a statement about probability”, says mathematician Lynn Osen. But despite math being important to a child’s success, 43% of tenth graders in the United States failed or did not meet the minimum requirements in both reading and math in 2002 (Sharma, 2003). Obviously, standardized testing is not working for