Standardized Testing Essay

2967 Words12 Pages

Abstract
Test scores have been an issue of concern for several decades. The debate about standardized tests' validity, efficiency, and equality has raised awareness of this disturbing trend. Research has shown that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds perform worse on standardized tests than others.; this presents the premise that test scores directly correlate to students' socioeconomic status. Another reason for the low test scores among students may be the cultural relevance or the lack of cultural significance of the tests to the test takers' lives. The tests are designed to gauge student achievement but are often culturally irrelevant to test takers.
A quantitative research method was used to study the test data taken from 85 …show more content…

Standardized testing, which is part of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), and which falls under NCLB, seeks to hold teachers, schools, school districts, and states, accountable for student progress and achievement through multiple yearly tests in core academic subjects like English, math, science, and social studies.
Test scores have been an issue of concern for several decades (Hout, 2012). In the past few years there has been a debate over are our students are being tested too much and are these high-state tests harming our students (Hout, 2012) Even more disturbing, the test results demonstrated that the achievement gap between students was largely based on socioeconomic status and financial security (Collier, 2016). Understanding how impactful standardized test scores can be to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds needs to be explored …show more content…

Socioeconomic status occurs when members of a stigmatized group perform poorly on a task (Croizet, 2004). Test scores have dropped over the last few years in reading and math nationwide (Collier, 2016). This review will enquire why students from different socioeconomic statuses test poorly on standardized high-stakes tests. According to Collier, 2016 test scores are down for students who come from socioeconomic backgrounds where students may come from one-parent households, and from areas where there is a high poverty rate in the community (Collier, 2016). Many of these schools have a 100 percent reduced or free lunch student population