Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay The United States’ education system sets kids up for failure. This is due to mandatory tests called standardized testing, which attempts to see where a child’s current cognitive abilities lie. However, standardized testing fails to do so, and is a detriment to student education, failing to prepare students for post-education life. These fallacies in the US education system are due to the avocation for teachers to ‘Teach to the Test’ and testing material not being suited to properly gauge student progress and knowledge. Teachers are persuaded to regulate what they teach to their students by what 's on the test due to government funding based off school’s test scores. Resulting in gaps in knowledge due to an incomplete learning curriculum. In a five-year study done by the University of Maryland, they found that when teachers teach to the test there is a decline in “teaching higher-order thinking, in the time spent on complex assignments, and in high amount cognitive content in the curriculum” (Jacobs, 2007). The university’s study shows that teaching to the test coincides with the decrease of curriculum quality, thus hindering the students’ ability to achieve. Also, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) testing standards have changed to narrow down the test material; focusing more on Math and English while pushing out Science, History, and the Arts. This shift in educational standards is demonstrated by the author of “Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era” when she states “75 percent of districts …show more content…
Nonpersistant factors like a disruptive student in the classroom or a car alarm going off can draw attention away from the test at hand and waste time. Time better spent on finishing the last couple of questions on a timed test, such as the SAT or