Standardized Testing Flaws

Sean Budomo

Mrs. Shippen

Language Arts

The current education system in the United States has many problems and is extremely flawed. The education system 's faults include the lack of quality teachers in many schools that do not care and do not get paid back the amount of effort they put in, government support in the wrong areas, uses of standardized testing, and the lack of parent involvement which creates negative student behaviors and attitudes in a child 's school life are some problems of US education. Common core is a problem, it has created a national defective standard curriculum and only slightly raised the rank of the United States in education compared to other countries, but still could not fix other problems from the

Standardized testing is an issue with students fearful to fail the tests, with all the pressure and tension on them to overcome this predicament, as well as teachers ' jobs being in jeopardy. Most students from lower income families are at a disadvantage with this setup and groundwork for standardized tests, such as the SAT. A wealthier, more affluent family can buy higher quality and superior preparation books. Students even turn to various methods such as cheating, in order to overcome the tests. Another bad example of the aftermath of standardized testing is cramming, which some might do as a result of the lack of concern with studies. “I can no longer cooperate with a testing regime that I believe is suffocating creativity and innovation in the classroom. We are not really educating our students anymore. We are merely teaching them to pass a test. This is wrong. Period.” (Maggiano) Teachers are afraid of students not scoring high, most likely if a school scores inadequate on average, the state would most likely deduct from that school 's funding. The time invested on standardized testing could devoted to actually learning something, like an interactive project or

Educational companies that produce these tests are ordinarily doing it for profit, the same tests are produced and used for the same things, evaluation of effectiveness of teachings on students, performance of teachers, classes, how well schools are doing overall, rather than individual tests and observation methods for different categories. These companies are more in the business for the financial aspect and acquisition they would earn from this, rather than enriching the minds of the new generation. The standardized tests do not provide any ways for students to improve and develop off of their test results. They are not being taught how to think, how to be inventive and imaginative, instead about memorization of content. (Armstrong, 1) The standardized testing merely focuses on reading and math proficiency, and some schools have put less of an emphasis on teaching subjects such as social studies, art, music, and physical education. (Mulholland, 1) The rising, high prices of college also continue to intimidate students graduating from high