Every student dreads hearing about upcoming standardized testing in school. The big question is, is it necessary? The United States has had some sort of standardized testing for over one hundred years and it reached its peak in the past decade. The purpose of them is to decide if individual students are academically prepared and if schools are teaching properly as a whole. Although, many beg to question, are they doing their job properly? The debate on whether standardized tests are worth keeping or if it would be better to switch to a new system all together, strikes major discussion among students, parents, teachers and law makers around the country. The biggest argument against standardized testing is that the tests are inaccurate and only test the student’s ability on one specific day. The tests can work in theory, but the problem is schools cannot control what goes on outside of school, and it can lead to some students …show more content…
“The heaviest testing load falls on the nation’s eighth-graders, who spend an average of 25.3 hours during the school year taking standardized tests” (Layton). Not even the pre-k kids are safe, as they must take on average of about four standardized tests in a year accumulating to about five hours. To add on the teachers must take time to prepare students for each test. These tests and the time it takes to prepare are yanking valuable hours away from teachers, when they could instead be teaching kids things that will better prepare them for the future. As stated earlier in the paragraph the idea that standardized tests waste time is believed by people who believe in standardized testing and those who would like to see it destroyed. In the words of Kati Haycock, “for those of us who support annual assessments, it doesn’t mean we support this craziness” (qtd. in