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The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

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Students studying at 1:00am, teachers frantically creating review sheets, all this mental strain just to see a deficient score on a test. This is happening to students all over the country. They are constantly manipulated that doing well on the PSAT is nearly as important as living. Teachers begin to believe preparing students for the upcoming AP Biology Exam is the main focus for the class, and rightfully so. With the influence that standardized tests have on students, why should a teacher be concerned with teaching anything else? (Rhetorical Question) Some argue standardized tests assure teachers and schools are held accountable for providing good teaching to students. However, rather than providing better teaching to the students, this …show more content…

Additionally, the survey reveals only 15% of the surveyed teachers believe it has a positive impact. The sad reality is since these standardized tests have so much influence for a students future, many teachers decide they have no choice but to teach the test to keep their job. Increasing standardized test’s influence on a student’s future does not result in teachers being held accountable to provide better teaching, rather it creates a dull and stressful classroom that neglects teachers to teach students material outside of …show more content…

There are many people who understand the content who simply do not perform well on standardized tests. Many students also develop test anxiety which hinders performance. Research from the American Test Anxieties Association states that around 16-20% of students have high test anxiety as well as around 18% having moderately high test anxiety. These statistics show determining whether a student is knowledgeable in the subject by looking at their standardized test scores is not always viable. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are about 71.1 million students enrolled into schools in the United States as of Fall 2017. If you account for the 38% of students with high to moderately high test anxiety, you have about 28 million students experiencing test anxiety. That is 28 million students who while taking tests are having reduced memory, lower confidence, and increased mistakes. We also have to consider many external factors that are often uncontrollable and can play into test performance. For example, imagine student wakes up the day he is taking ACT with sweat dripping down your face, a runny nose, and a killer headache. (Imagery) There is a good chance the student’s focus levels will be negatively affected. This all translates to lower test scores and an unfair measurement on the student’s true knowledge. So let me ask you this

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The facts supporting this include : teachers teaching to the test, the amount of stress put on the students and staff, student performance, and impersonal testing. To begin with, standardized testing causes teachers to “ teach to the test”. Many teachers across the US feel the need for their students to succeed on standardized

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566 Words | 3 Pages

Standardized testing is a very well known topic for a lot of people. Many people believe they are helpful to measure students intelligence and academic performance. Just as many people believe it is unfair, stressful, and affects the school and state as a whole. Standardized testing is an unfair approach to measure each student’s academic performance; and is something we should get rid of.

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974 Words | 4 Pages

This brings one question into the light: Is standardized testing really teaching and preparing our students in the best way possible? This is a question that has yet to be answered. The American public education system must be changed to meet the needs of today and the best way

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1718 Words | 7 Pages

Since the No Child Left Behind Act was mandated in 2002, test scores in our schools have steadily declined. In spite of this, proponents argue that standardized testing is an objective and effective method to measure student achievement and to hold teachers accountable. Unfortunately, this is the farthest thing from the truth. Standardized tests are neither fair nor effectual, there overuse and misuse promotes a narrow curriculum which forces teachers to "teach to the test" instead of teaching to the student. This instruction style inhibits creativity and undermines our country's ability to produce innovators and critical thinkers.

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882 Words | 4 Pages

All students answer the same question under the same conditions. However, not all students have the same ability to take tests. Some students suffer from test anxiety that prevents them from scoring as well as they could, and others’ scores suffer as a result of situations outside of the exam room. There are students who are extremely intelligent and understand the material, but whose scores do not reflect so. This is because standardized tests only test the individual performance of a student on a single day, instead of measuring the overall growth of a student throughout the year.

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1451 Words | 6 Pages

This test, is a one day thing. We cram so many years worth of education to release it all at one time, to most likely determine the outcome of our future. Some student are just simply not well skilled in taking tests. Many of these types of students are smart and can comprehend the context, but this does not show on the test. Some students also develop test anxiety which can hinder testing performance.

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840 Words | 4 Pages

According to American Test Anxieties Association, it was reported that 16-20% of students suffer from test anxiety and another 18% suffer from a moderately-high form of anxiety. Therefore, an estimated 38% of students have suffered

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822 Words | 4 Pages

“One widely accepted definition of test-anxiety is ‘an unpleasant feeling or emotional state that has both physiological and behavioral components and that is experienced in formal testing or other evaluative situations’” (McCleaster 16). Test anxiety is a real disability and needs to be treated more seriously in the education system. Research shows that test anxiety has related back to an increase in testing (Fulton 4). A great amount of standardized testing is given to students and it leads to cramming in the information; which will likely cause them to forget everything they attempted to memorize when the time comes to take the test. This can lead to students getting nervous and with so many students affected by test anxiety, it is unfair for schools to assume that standardized testing reflects a person’s

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1029 Words | 5 Pages

The last thing any student want to feel before taking an exam is stress, a great deal of it. As I students myself, I know how it feels when my teachers pass out the booklets and bubble sheets. The only thing on my mind would be questions about how I would perform on this test, making it very hard to read each question and answer it to the best of my abilities. Because the standardized test is very important, students are pressure to perform well on them. This pressure to perform

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1660 Words | 7 Pages

Standardized testing does more harm than good, though. It forces teachers to “teach to the test”, robbing kids of other important areas of education, along with only evaluating how a student does on that particular day, not taking into account external factors. It also does not evaluate a student’s higher-level thinking. Our children’s future is at stake. America needs to find a better way of effectively measuring a student’s intelligence to ensure that its future is a bright one.

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789 Words | 4 Pages

Standardized testing is seen as the answering to improving public education in the United States. Students face district- and state- mandated tests as well as national ones. However, standardized testing is not the answer to improving education. Teaching skills and learning environments both are effective ways to improve education. Tests are only used to evaluate how well a teacher is doing, therefore students shouldn’t have to take them.

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1252 Words | 6 Pages

Washington post says ¨It’s not clear exactly how many students have it but severe test anxiety could afflict as much as 20 percent of the school-going population, according to the American Test Anxiety Association, and another 18 percent may have a moderate form of

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596 Words | 3 Pages

The American Test Anxiety Association states it's possible that 20 percent of kids in schools have severe test anxiety, and another 18 percent have a mild form of the condition. This is an epidemic that stresses our students. It can interfere with personal life and hurt kids not only mentally but emotionally. Vasu Babaria, a student from Hillsborough Middle School says, “Test are very stressful. It can keep me up at night, thinking of the consequences if I get a bad grade.”

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2323 Words | 10 Pages

In the last 10 years, standards and testing have dominated many discussions on the quality of the American public education. In the article, “Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality,” explains standardized tests as an examination that is scored in a “predetermined”, “standard manner” and predicts how students will perform in any educational setting (Popham, par.3). I believe that these tests are not enough to assess students fairly and do not take true measure of a student’s educational quality. Standardized tests should be only one measure of performance, and evaluated alongside other assessment tools that include classroom work, students’ hard work, and teacher evaluations. In my consideration, testing in its current format

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526 Words | 3 Pages

Another problem with standardized testing is that if a question is answered correctly by a vast majority (eighty percent or more) of people taking the test, that question is often eliminated from the test. These tests are meant to show “comparative interpretations” so important questions that many teachers may focus on extensively are often taken out because too many students are getting them right. As James Popham, UCLA professor, puts it, “the better the job that teachers do in teaching important knowledge and/or skills, the less likely it is that there will be items on a standardized achievement test measuring such knowledge and/or skills,” which does not make sense in testing academic achievement. So, although teachers on a large scale deem a subject very important and teach as it is so, the subjects value is diminished for testing purposes (Popham). Jesse Hagopian, author of More than a Score, calls the power of

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