Standardized Testing Negatively Impacted Public Schools

Standardized tests have been historically used to measure how students compare with each other and how much of a particular curriculum they have learned. Increasingly, standardized tests are being used to make major decisions about students, such as grade promotion or high school graduation, and schools(Galegroup). Standardized testing is not an effective measurement of how capable and knowledgeable a student is due to it negatively impacting schools, its serious limitations, and its harm on student’s learning.

The greater emphasis that has been placed on standardized testing in public schools has created a significant negative impact on the education system. In the article “Standardized Testing has Negatively Impacted Public Schools” Bobbie

Many teachers fail to differentiate what is important and what is not. To be easy to grade, tests cannot measure higher order thinking. Critical thinking often gets left behind and memorization has taken over. Many students just simply don’t perform well on tests, but with these standards schools are held to it puts alot of stress on teachers who then push it onto their students. According to a psychology teacher, Melissa Hurst states that standardized test scores are greatly influenced by non academic factors, such as fatigue and attention span. “ Standardized test items are not parallel with typical classroom skills and behaviors. Due to the fact that questions have to be generalizable to the entire population, most items assess general knowledge and understanding.”(Hurst) These tests limit many things and cause a huge disadvantage to not only students, but to the schools as well. Scores don't provide very much information when evaluating a student's achievement, a teacher's competency, or the success of a particular school or program. To make such judgments, you need to go beyond the scores themselves and make some inferences about what they might mean. This is all just another reason that standardized testing shouldn’t be used to determine how well a student

The whole point of the education system is to teach students important things that will help and benefit them later in life. Focusing and putting all our time and energy into memorizing a curriculum just to pass a test that is required isn’t how we should be spending our schools days. Personally when I know I have a huge test to study for without a doubt I can say it goes in one ear and out the other. I’m not completely processing and reading between the lines everything that I’m learning because I know that in the end it just is about passing a multiple choice test. Standardized tests have proven to lack the critical thinking that students should be learning everyday. "Children are getting the message at a very young age that if you pick the right choice between several options you can be successful. That's not the way to learn, especially creatively. That's not experimenting or exploring or creating.” (Galegroup). Due to a test kids are lacking simply skills that are a necessity in life. Learning is not a one-size-fits-all principle. Kids and our schools shouldn't have their whole futures riding on how well children can fill in little circles, to be scored by machines. Others claim that Standardized testing is a good way to measure students learning. They want to make sure that high school graduates are have acquired the knowledge and skills they need for further education and adult life. “Over