Arguments Against Standardized Testing
Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, federal and state governments have instituted one reform program after another in an effort to raise American student academic performance levels. American educators have turned to standardized testing for student assessment since World War I, which is when the U.S. Army utilized the "Alpha assessment test" in order to assign new recruits to "suitable positions" (Smyth, 2008, p. 133). Almost 15 years ago on January 2, 2002, former president George W. Bush signed into legislation the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act (Public Law 107–110). The use of standardized testing in the U.S. public school system reached a new high as this legislation made standardized testing the "main vehicle for measuring …show more content…
Instead, what we have is a system in American where kids take more standardized, mainly multiple choice tests than their peers in any other industrialized nation. The NCLB is "flawed, developmentally inappropriate, ill-funded" and has the net effect of leaving "more students, teachers and schools behind than ever before" (Smyth, 2008, p. 133). It is important that every student receives a high quality education because standardized testing is not the best way to ensure that students’ receive a good education by taking away the focus on other subjects, causing extra stress for students and others involved, the No Child Left behind Act needs to be abandoned completely. This paper will analyze some of the NCLB’s key goals and negative impact of this reform idea on student learning, while also analyzing the costs of this law in terms of legal, financial, personal and institutional …show more content…
Although this may sound, effective the NCLB discredits this notion by allowing almost all states now to receive waivers that allow them to miss key elements of the law without any punishments. Moreover, opponents in favor of the law may agree that the increased testing has created an environment where teachers teach to the exam eliminating unneeded materials. If you believe more rigor means more, or better, learning the reality is harder tests do not make kids smarter. Unfortunately, the love of teaching and learning is being diminished by the drills and worksheets used to get ready for “the big test”. The idea of using standardized testing to evaluate student academic performance is not new, and as of yet has shown no measurable increase in student performance. As history shows this idea was first tried in Oregon in 1874 (Abernathy, 2007). At the time, the fear was expressed that standardized testing would result in "all sorts of unwanted and unforeseen changes in the behavior" of those people administering the tests, which suggests that teaching to the test was a concern in this era as well (Abernathy, 2007, p. 2). Consequently standardized testing produces higher exclusion rates from testing and increased dropout rates. The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado,
Arguments Against Standardized Testing
885 Words | 4 PagesTrue high-stakes standardized testing was begun in 2001, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, which was put into place to help make it so that all children would have an equal opportunity to learn, regardless of their race, ethnic background or their families’ income level. While their goals sound admirable, the problem began with the implementation of the act; they wanted to ensure that each child was at least proficient in the standards that they developed, so they decided that testing was the best way to do so (Aske, Connelly & Corman, 2013). The issue with this is that not all students excel at test-taking, and putting so much emphasis on it can cause a student severe stress and anxiety (Colwell, 2013). In 2009, Race to the Top was implemented, but instead of placing less emphasis on testing and more on learning, it made the stakes worse, ensuring that schools that had students who did not perform as well could be shut down, or individual teachers could be fired if they did not show what was considered to be appropriate progress in test scores, which might soon prove impossible since the optimal goal is to reach a level of 100 percent of the students in a school to the proficiency level (Tavakolian & Howell,
Is Standardized Testing Bad
1212 Words | 5 PagesProponents see standardized testing as a way of making testing more efficient and effective by minimizing cost and increasing people’s accountability for their performance in the system. Opponents on the other hand argue that the systems has limitations based on its very nature on what can be tested and as a result of these standards needing to be met sacrifice some very important aspects of students education experience as well as force onto students and teachers a one size fits all model that has failed to deliver on its promises. After having reviewed all the evidence in detail it becomes clear to me that standardized testing is not an effective system for educating students and does more bad than good
Standardized Testing Dbq
1130 Words | 5 PagesThere are also much better ways to test a student’s capability to learn; a 2006 Center on Education Policy conducted a study and found that a curriculum that follows state standards and uses the test data as feedback led to higher scores than those that prioritized test-taking skills. When teachers are more focused on teaching material rather than test strategies, their students benefit from it (“Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students’ Abilities?”). Several alternative methods to state assessments for measuring a student’s academic success include comparing high school graduation rates and the number of dropouts, offering advanced placement courses, and looking at the percentage of the former students that are admitted to colleges. State assessments are more harmful than helpful to students; they are a large cause of test anxiety and a majority of teachers can never fully prepare their students. Although state assessments are an easy way to be able to see the growth of students, that does not mean that they are the best
Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay
1229 Words | 5 PagesStandard testing is a very controversial and important subject because it deals with the progression of the American education system. The practice of these assessments has been highly scrutinized not only for the way it has changed the format of classrooms, but also for its accuracy, pressure, and abundance. In 2001, standardized testing became federally mandated through the No Child Left Behind Act by former president George Bush Jr. According to research from the Council of the Great City Schools, students have been taking “an average of 113 tests from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade” (K. Hefling). These numbers have increased to the point where parents have opted for their children to not attend standardized exams.
No Child Left Behind: A Failing Attempt At Reform Analysis
779 Words | 4 Pages“No Child Left Behind: A Failing Attempt at Reform,” written by Sarah E Holmes in 2010, examines the intended goals of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) versus the actual results the act has produced. The NCLB was implemented in 2001 under the George W. Bush administration. The goal of the act was to reach “100% proficiency of all groups of students in America by the year 2014.” Although ESEA and IASA were already developed the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to be a mash of the two and solve all the problems and weakness that both acts displayed. The NCLB act “ laid out consequences for schools that could not
No Child Left Behind Act (Nclba)
792 Words | 4 PagesThe "No Child Left Behind Act" (P. L. 107-110) is a federal act which establishes a regime of statewide achievement tests in reading or language arts, math, and science that states must follow in order to receive a grant under Title I, Part A of the act (USDOE). This Title I grant is the largest federal grant to states and local school districts for the education of disadvantaged children. States receive millions of dollars in annual funding for their schools which are tied to the requirements found within the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLBA). The tests the act requires compose the key components of the NCLBA standards and accountability framework. Test results provide the basis for measuring state, school district, and school progress
Should Standardized Testing Be Required
894 Words | 4 PagesThe idea that one test can accumulate all of one student’s academic abilities is no longer accurate. Today, the standardized tests that are used not only discriminate against the non wealthy families, it also is not an accurate reading of all of one’s abilities in and out of school. The tests also have become such a huge focus in the classroom that it is beginning to take away the process of learning in a classroom and being replaced with memorization to get good test scores. The standardized tests do not need to disappear all together, however the tests need a lot of revising if the states continue to use them as they do
Standardized Testing Persuasive Essay
647 Words | 3 PagesIn fact, the increasing use of standardized testing will do more damage than good, because of its failure to capture the entirety of a student’s body of work. Furthermore, the overwhelming stress that the United States government, and school systems have placed on the usage of standardized tests has become detrimental to American education, and is not the most effective way to gauge the intelligence of American students. The American educational system should be fixated on providing each child enough attention and information so they can succeed in that class and in the future. However, the increasing focus on having to pass a standardized test has blinded schools of the real goal, because they are required to get their students to pass the standardized tests.
The Argument Against Standardized Testing In Texas
1597 Words | 7 PagesThe state of Texas has been in a constant struggle within itself over just how to evaluate education, and standardized testing in Texas has been a major influencer in terms of the state’s standards for over thirty years. Though these methods of testing have been utilized for decades, resentment to the tests have been continuously rising among educators, parents, and students, but not everyone agrees. Despite government officials trying to quell these protests with changes to administration, and the way the test itself is formatted and formulated, there seems to have been little to no improvement made and those opposing the tests have started calling for an end to all standardized testing. For one to truly understand this ongoing struggle, one must first look at standardized testing’s beginning, then how government today is trying to fix the broken system, and finally consider the opinions of notable figures in the testing world.
Incentive Summary
449 Words | 2 PagesIn my opinion, public educational curriculums and accountability guidelines should be established at the state and local levels where parents/guardians play an integral role in the decision making process. I do not believe standardized tests alone are an accurate measure of a student’s knowledge; their classwork, projects, and literary works also represent a student’s talent and capabilities. In agreement with Robert Schaeffer, a representative for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, that federal mandated programs such as the No Child Left Behind and The Race to The Top high-stakes tests foster the temptation to cheat because they serve as means to both punish and reward students, teachers, and principals based solely upon test scores (Schaeffer,
Standardized Testing In America Essay
1425 Words | 6 Pages1. Background Information Ever since the education system in America began to develop, forms of testing have been popular to measure a student’s knowledge. During the 1800s, educators began to implement ways to assess student achievement such as oral exams, but over time it would be replaced with written tests(National Education Association). Following World War I, educators wanted to test how well a student was prepared for college, as well as see how they were performing under certain curricular areas(National Education Association). Gradually, schools throughout America adapted to school-wide testing to evaluate the performance of students and teachers.
Persuasive Speech On Standardized Testing
1868 Words | 8 PagesThe state tried to force this child, Ethan, to take this test. In the meantime while Andrea was fighting the school system, Ethan Rediske passed away. It doesn’t have to be this way. Our children aren’t all dying of terrible diseases, but these standardized testing is killing our brothers and sisters creativity and passion for school instead. Standardized tests do not accurately measure what students know and what they can do, nor are they accurate predictors of future success
Persuasive Essay On Standardized Testing
730 Words | 3 PagesSome of a student’s most horrid days of school are the standardized testing days. Standardized tests have been around for a long time, but recently the tests are have become much longer in length. These tests don’t directly influence the student’s placement, so what is the point of these tests. Although the tests can help teachers when they are trying to find a student’s academic level, schools should not be required to make students take these tests. The testing takes up time students could be learning more, and the students don’t enjoy taking these tests, and it turns them off of school.
Persuasive Essay On No Child Left Behind
507 Words | 3 PagesThe aim of the No Child Left Behind Act is to insist that schools focus on the lesser performing students, trying to boost their scores. However, this notion of helping the weak almost entirely omits the needs of the top performing students whose skills are dulling as they must wait for the lesser performing students to catch up. Even for the lesser performing students, there is no incentive to achieve any higher than the bare minimum. Also, the test is flawed in the sense that even in a perfect world, not all students can be above average, someone has to fail.
Early Indicators Of The Disparity In Vocabulary Acquisition
1035 Words | 5 PagesGiven the concern about the state of America’s education, The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), of 2001, expanded its federal role in education and put in place legislation with goals of improving education of disadvantaged students and closing the achievement
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