Standardized Testing Essay

Increasingly today in America’s school system, there is a recognition of tension between individuality and conformity. The struggle between students’ personal needs and the needs of the whole continues to grow. This can be seen though the controversial issue of standardized testing. These are tests that are designed in a way, which are administered and recorded in a consistent method. In standardized testing, all test takers are required to answer the same set of multiple-choice, true or false questions, short answer, and essay questions. Standardized testing is usually used to compare the performance of individuals in a relative manner. Many people consider standardized testing as an objective way of grading a student, however, it is evident

The growing minds of scholars in elementary, middle and high school should be exposed to a more creative system of measuring education. When reflecting on the current state of testing, John Holt states, “And so, in this dull and ugly place, where nobody ever says anything very truthful, where everybody is playing a kind of role, as in a charade, where teachers are no more free to respond honestly to the students than the students are free to respond to the teachers or each other” (E) This reflection on America’s education system represents the controlling and ineffective tactics. Students and teachers have confirmed to an unnatural fruitless environment including standardized testing. This demonstrates the effects of attention away from the needs of an individual. Secondly, on a design for a book about how to prepare kinder gated students for standardized testing, it shows images of pencils, clocks and a slip of paper including four answer bubbles. (C) This perfectly shows the controlling and rigid structure of the timing, the testing and the organization of standardized testing. The boxes of questions lead students into problems and stifles creativity. Lastly, many SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests contain specific questions to study for, forcing a student to think within the guidelines of the tests. These tactics and current states of tAmerican school systems represent the

It creates an obsession with test scores as a chief “accountably” metric for students, educators and schools. This system has led to the exams becoming an end instead of a means to an end. For instance, according the Joh Holt, within the learning environment “the air practically vibrates with suspicion and anxiety, the child learns to live in a daze, saving his energies for those small parts of his life that are too trivial for the adults to bother with, and thus remain his.” (E) This represents the crucial and harsh environment students experience when facing tests. It puts unnecessary stress on the minds of students and degrades their self worth into nothing. These systems of compulsory secondary schools can all too often resemble prisons.” (A) “It is a rare child who can come through his schooling with much left of his curiosity, his independence or his sense of his own dignity, competence and worth.” (E) The standardized testing system evidently shows the negative effect on the morale of the students. It produces gripping anxiety on even the brightest students, and make young students sick or fearful of failure. Major high schools within the New York City region have records of suicide from over work and the negative effects of the standardized system. While standardized tests are used for college applications, it puts an unfair obsession that only the SAT and ACT determine the success of a student. This creates