Education is, and always has been, an important topic for discussion across the globe, with all nations taking a different stance on it. Some nations, such as Finland, believe the less involvement there is, the better the student will be and therefore more success they will have in the future. America, however, believes that they need to do the opposite and implement the “more is better” approach on its students. It simply means that there needs to be more of everything related to education, such as the amount of testing, class sizes, etc., and that will therefore improve the quality of a student’s education. In ironic contrast, however, this systematic approach is instead hurting American students rather than helping them. One aspect of …show more content…
Standardized testing in its simplicity is nothing more than a generic test forced upon students to test how well they can memorize information rather than how well they can apply that knowledge. In a study conducted by Council of Great City Schools, the student will take a total of 9.1 standardized tests a year, over a 4 year period. The amount of time they spend taking these tests averages out around 21.23 hours, almost an entire 24-hour day. These numbers are just for tests such as the PSAT, SAT, ACT, and other test. Those tests are only mandated by the country to be given to students. If I were to count all the tests individual schools are ordering teachers to give, those numbers would skyrocket. In my own schedule, I take at least one exam a week, imagine that over a 36 week school year. Those tests are not as helpful as they may seem either. A research assignment completed by the International Student Assessment program totaled America to be ranked 17th internationally for Reading, 26th internationally for Math, and 21st internationally for science. These tests score say one thing: these test scores may be good, but not good enough to be forcing them down students