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Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

1470 Words6 Pages

It is discouraging to think that the intent of standardized testing was to promote educational excellence, while the introduction of standardized testing to students has actually had the opposite effect. How do you define student achievement? Many people think standardized testing is the answer. These exams are otherwise known as “high-stakes tests” because the outcome of these tests are often extremely significant for a student’s future. Since 1994, when states were first required to develop their own tests, standardized testing has been used to measure the performance of students. But, using standardized testing to do so is taking away from education. Education should serve a specific purpose, to have students learn and explore what life has to offer. However, standardized …show more content…

At the start of the school year in 2012, public schools in Virginia and Washington D.C. announced how many students would have to pass that year’s test in each racial group for the schools to remain with a good rating, “For example, in Virginia only 45% of black students in each school must pass standardized math tests while 68% of whites, and 82% of Asians must do the same” (Why It’s Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests). These schools are setting different academic bars for each race to compete with. While the officials say that those plans were not discriminatory, what these schools do not realize is that if some students are expected to achieve less than others, it will lower the academic expectations for those students, further widening the gap in education. As well as racial bias in standardized testing, there is also a language barrier between students. If two students are taken from the same classroom, one may have been speaking English since they were a toddler, while the other may have just recently moved to America. Not knowing a lot of the English language, students with English as their

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There is a large presence of power when Joe is introduced into the story. Joe has dominance over Eatonville as well as over Janie. What strived the control over Janie and the people of Eatonville was the desire of power. His power caused the townspeople to appreciate his effort of change in the town however, they also fear his strength.

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Proponents see standardized testing as a way of making testing more efficient and effective by minimizing cost and increasing people’s accountability for their performance in the system. Opponents on the other hand argue that the systems has limitations based on its very nature on what can be tested and as a result of these standards needing to be met sacrifice some very important aspects of students education experience as well as force onto students and teachers a one size fits all model that has failed to deliver on its promises. After having reviewed all the evidence in detail it becomes clear to me that standardized testing is not an effective system for educating students and does more bad than good

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As a result, some schools are finding it tough to score above average on these test giving teachers no option, but to focus solely on learning outcomes that meet high stake test requirements. Additionally, students with low test score were always pressured by their teacher to achieve high test, scores and when they did not produce higher results, some educator, believed, if they punished the student they would become more serious with schooling and work hard to avoid the pressure or humiliating punishments (Hurley, 2007). I used to be an advocate of high stakes testing, but now I oppose high stakes testing sine I have seen first hand myself the damage it does to a student. Also, I several educators and professional use high stakes test results as a single indicator for measuring a person's competence or determining their future outcome, even though research has proven these tests is highly

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1229 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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1749 Words | 7 Pages

“Standardized tests are unfair and discriminatory, because students with diverse backgrounds and skill levels are expected to answer questions written for the white, abled majority. " I think this point is very hard to argue with because if these tests are written for the white students, then how are students with a different background or diversity supposed to do well? One improvement could be that maybe there isn’t just one test for the whole country or the state, but instead there are multiple tests for multiple regions. Certain regions get certain tests because of the situation they are in. This makes sense and I believe it would improve the scores and even if it didn’t

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1602 Words | 7 Pages

The average reading test score for African-American students on last year’s test was 429, 99 points below that for white students. And while white students ' scores were flat, the average score for black students fell by one. “Statistics like these are debated every year when SAT data are released, and when similar breakdowns are offered on other standardized test.” (Jaschik) Along with evidence of racial bias on the SAT, it is also said that standardized tests harm a student’s

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895 Words | 4 Pages

Standardized tests are very common in today’s modern society. They are used as a tool to measure a person’s performance and indicate how their estimated performance will be in a college class. Every year hundreds of students take the ACT or SAT in order to get accepted into their college of choice and to receive scholarships, but they fail to see the problems with these standardized tests. As more and more people take these tests, the national average score falls causing doubt in the extremely important system. This is leading people to question whether or not the ACT and SATs are accomplishing what they were created to do.

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885 Words | 4 Pages

True high-stakes standardized testing was begun in 2001, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, which was put into place to help make it so that all children would have an equal opportunity to learn, regardless of their race, ethnic background or their families’ income level. While their goals sound admirable, the problem began with the implementation of the act; they wanted to ensure that each child was at least proficient in the standards that they developed, so they decided that testing was the best way to do so (Aske, Connelly & Corman, 2013). The issue with this is that not all students excel at test-taking, and putting so much emphasis on it can cause a student severe stress and anxiety (Colwell, 2013). In 2009, Race to the Top was implemented, but instead of placing less emphasis on testing and more on learning, it made the stakes worse, ensuring that schools that had students who did not perform as well could be shut down, or individual teachers could be fired if they did not show what was considered to be appropriate progress in test scores, which might soon prove impossible since the optimal goal is to reach a level of 100 percent of the students in a school to the proficiency level (Tavakolian & Howell,

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828 Words | 4 Pages

Standardized tests have caused so many teachers to be labeled due to how their students performed on tests. If their class performs well, the teacher is deemed to be a "good" teacher ; if their class does not perform so well than the teacher is often labeled "unfit" . Teachers dedicate so much teaching time to standardized tests and state exams when in all actuality, they are harming students more than they are helping them. For this and many other reasons, I believe that standardized and state tests do not measure educational quality and should not be a requirement. From pre-kindergarten until students have received all of their credits, they are required to take state test and exams, which have no reflection on how they 're

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521 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized Testing is a very controversial topic in the academic teachings community lately. There is a very big divide between what students and parents feel about these tests verse what big corporations think about these tests. Is it viable? Does it truly test the smartness of a student? These questions are the few questions that are at the core of this topic.

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1658 Words | 7 Pages

People assume that standardized testing is a good way of comparing the performance levels of various students from different schools and locations, and without standardized testing, many think this will not be possible. What people often do not know is that standardized testing is

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589 Words | 3 Pages

There are two standardized tests that are popular in America, the ACT and the SAT, both focusing on testing different areas of the brain, these are the tests that help to determine a student’s college career. The ACT, American College Testing, was developed in 1959 a linguist and college professor. The ACT is on a grading scale of 0-36 with 215 total questions and testing time is four hours. The test is geared towards accumulative knowledge, bringing up topics from fifth grade to a student’s junior year in high school. The ACT is more prevalent if a student is applying to schools in the south and midwest, however it can be put on any college application.

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709 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized tests have many positive effects, but not everybody sees these positive effects. Many people think the practice of standardized testing should be canceled, partially because like stated earlier, they believe that the tests are inaccurate and allow room for a lot of error. They think that these tests are also too expensive to keep using. Along with these two reasons these people believe that teachers teach to the test which in turn narrows the educational curriculum. This means that instead of teachers teaching what they want to teach (which could result in students knowing different things), they now would teach a standardized version of it.

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919 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1368 Words | 6 Pages

Standardized Testing An issue in education policy that interests me is; standardized testing. Is standardized testing really measuring what we want in education? I personally feel the answer is no. I feel “teaching to the test” needs to be replaced with methods and initiatives that will impact our children’s education in a positive way for a better opportunity for future growth and achievement’s of their personal academic goals.

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