Why Is Standardized Testing Wrong

People learn in all different ways and when you take a test they are not made for all the different types of people and their learning styles. ”Tables have illustrated that approximately 7 percent of whites and Asian Americans reached the Advanced level compared to 1 percent of African Americans and 2 percent of Hispanics. Nearly 50 percent of white students and 40 percent of Asian American students reached or exceeded the Proficient level, while 21 percent and 30 percent of African American and Hispanic students, respectively, reached or exceeded this level. Even wider disparities are found on the 1996 twelfth-grade NAEP math and science tests (WAYNE J. CAMARA and AMY ELIZABETH SCHMIDT 3). With things like this being shown why do administrators think that standardized testing is the best route?

From studying education, I have noticed how many school districts teach based upon what the students will be tested over. As a future educator, I feel as if a standardized test cannot determine what a student is capable of. The individuals creating the test often don’t realize that many students suffer from test anxiety, in fear of failing the test and what is more fearful is how the school districts pressure the teachers to stress to the students the importance of passing the test. Also, in this chapter Boaler describes assessment for learning as having three components clear communication about what students have learned, a way to help students understand where they are on their journey to mastery and where they still need to improve, and information on ways to get from where students are currently to where they need to be to meet success criteria. This chapter offered several strategies that will help students have a better grasp of where they are in the learning process and that will help them develop and maintain a growth mindset.

In 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.

All students dread one thing when it comes to school - testing. Standardized test are the main focus in our school systems instead of actually gaining knowledge at the end of the year. As a mother, Michelle Rhee, understands the lack of attention given on education as a whole instead of just waiting on the scores, but she still agrees on continuing with standardized test. Kristina Rizga opposes the opinion of Michelle Rhee as she does not believe standardized test truly measure the intelligence of a student. Kristina Rizga proves her stand against standardized test by utilizing solid use of argumentation.

This choice of deciding a person 's entrance or exclusion has its share of supporters. However, the effectiveness of standardized testing is questionable amongst some. Certainly, critics oppose standardized tests with the rationale that they do not accurately measure students ' knowledge, and they are expensive and stressful. For example, envision a high school student that, in terms of academic intelligence, measures far beyond par when it

The way we test takes up time that could be used to learn something new. The first piece of evidence that I have, is that the tests cause stress to many people. The text stated, “Tests cause lots of stress and anxiety to people.” Some reasons are that parents believe that teachers have been “teaching to the test” throughout the years.

However, arguably it is also stated that these test might not really be providing a teacher with knowledge they don’t already obtain about their students. These tests are designed to be given to the masses so it cannot narrow important topics on broad

Standardized Testing: Making College Admissions “Fair” Every year , the daunting prospect of undergoing standardized testing brings anxiety to thousands of high school students, and for good reason: a student’s performance on standardized college admission exams - most importantly, the ACT and SAT - is a major determinant in deciding where they will go to college. For decades, such standardized tests have been universally accepted as part of the admissions process: proponents argue, as Syverson (2007) explains, that such tests are the only way of standardizing college admissions when students from different schools have such widely varying profiles. However, in the past several decades a growing anti-testing movement has begun to poke holes

Over two hundred parents claim to not let a student go through standardized testing. The earliest records of standardized testing come from China, for the subjects of philosophy and poetry. America “copied” the European education system. In the early 20th century, immigrants took “standardized tests”. To determine possible career and where each person stood socially.

Standardized tests are toxic to the future prospects of America: the students. The tests are prejudiced against minority test-takers as a result of biased questions. Students’ education is harmed due to narrowed curriculums and school closings. With the knowledge gained about standardized tests, many colleges have become “test-optional institutions” (Soares 3). In fact, according the article “Standardized Tests Discriminate Against Minority and Lower Income Students,” Wake Forest University went test-optional in 2009 and today there are over 870 test-optional colleges, representing almost 40 percent of all four-year degree colleges in America (Soares 3).

Since 2006, overall SAT scores have dropped by 21 points. It is safe to say that the increase in standardized testing has done more bad than good. When standardized testing became more prominent, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) saw a plateau in reading and math scores. Additionally, the NAEP saw no further closure in the test score gap. The test score gap affects all minorities.

After many studies, standardized testing has been labeled as unreliable. Giving the same exact exam to students in a class does not give the accurate information the state is looking for. One student may be stronger in a different exam design; some students have test anxiety, ADHD and many other obstacles. The creators of standardized testing goal were to test students in a predetermined, standard manner, however, they do not take into account others skills students have adapted to throughout the year. Test strategies, tactics and practice exams are drilled into students in class, instead of the pure information they should be learning, an example is made by Educational Leadership, “In item-teaching, teachers organize their instruction either around the actual items found on a test or around a set of look-alike items.”

Introduction Standardized tests may be used for a wide variety of educational purposes. For example, they may be used to determine a young child’s readiness for kindergarten, identify students who need special-education services or specialized academic support, place students in different academic programs or course levels, or award diplomas and other educational certificates. Thesis Statement Standardized tests should not be eliminated completely, but should rather be evaluated in addition to other factors such as grades, extracurricular activities, and volunteer hours. This would take pressure off of students during standardized tests, allow colleges to see how well-rounded the students are, and give students who are better in other areas

Despite the rise of more standardized testing in the United States in the past few decades, the US continues to place behind many other countries in international student assessments (30th in math compared to Finland’s 6th place). One of the reasons for standardized testing failing its goals in increasing student performance is that teachers are now on a rigid deadline with inflexible course material they must teach. Instead of taking the time to properly walk students through the steps of a problem and teaching them how to think on their own, only the information on the syllabus provided at the beginning of each class is taught. There is (usually) no room for creative and critical thinking as there is simply no time for it. Thus, we students become inundated with the expectations of learning something without properly understanding it, only to take a test at the end of the year that has no real meaning to us.

It is generally accepted that testing encourages and gauges students’ learning, although most students would agree that education would be a little bit more enjoyable if they took fewer tests, given that the tests contain a lot of marks at stake (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Hence, the idea of self-testing as a form of practice testing is a reasonable idea. When students do self-testing, they test their memory, what they have learned, what have they revised; anything they can recall from memory. Through this, they can gauge their own performance and where they stand in terms of comprehension and understanding, much like how teachers do when testing students. Hartwig and Dunlosky (2012) believe that “self-testing by recalling the target information boosts performance on subsequent recall and multiple-choice tests of the target information, and it also boosts performance on tests of comprehension” (p. 131).