Problems With Standardized Testing

As Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We see within society that in order to combat a problem, we take it upon ourselves to create a new one. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People are stuck in the same mentality that fostered the problem, and their coping mechanisms lead to new problems. Take people who drink or smoke when they are under stress or are facing some type of problem. They are trying to fix the problem, but are in turn creating new ones that may not arise at first but have detrimental effects down the line. Standardized testing is no different. When it first came about, people were stuck in this mentality that blurred what was really needed, and although

They served as a way in which to compare students on a large scale. The beauty behind it was that each student was given identical tests and there were no discrepancies. Yet, something that the school system failed to realize is that equal does not mean the same. When everyone is given the same test and some are unable to produce the same results because of mental disabilities or language barriers, we begin to unfold the first layer of standardized testing problems. Since the introduction of standardized tests, we have seen a larger focus on trying to catch everyone up to the ability to take the same test. This has made teaching nearly impossible, since now teachers are teaching a sliver of the class what they really need to learn and because of this and the barriers that students face, “U.S. students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st place in 2009, with a similar decline in science and no change in reading” (Shatzky). Students are no longer being taught how to learn and how to critically think, and are instead taught how to take a test because although we see a decline in the rankings of the world; the test score averages have increased over time. How is it that we as a country are falling in rank, but increasing in test scores which should reflect an increase in

The form of questions in which they ask a question and provide three or more choices of answers with it. Many students do not like these type of questions for the following reasons: The answers all sound the same, they confuse more than they help, and some believe that reading more than one possible answer for a question would make one rethink what they know, and therefore select the wrong answer. Also, in mathematics standardized tests for example, multiple choice questions are not a good way to determine how much students know. A student might solve a problem or an equation correctly through all the steps then makes a small mistake at the end and lose all the points for the question making it unfair and not a real representation of what they know. On the other hand, these types of tests are easier for cheating. Using the same example about mathematics, a student can cheat the entire test without knowing how to solve any question and still pass the test because there is no way to determine whether they know how to solve it, guessed, or cheated. “Standardized tests were never intended to measure the complexities of intelligence, and over time they have drawn the center of gravity in college admissions away from things we value. Because scores generally improve with guidance and repetition, the tests have encouraged an industry of test training that takes advantage of the ambitions of students and families.”