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High Stakes Testing Persuasive Essay

526 Words3 Pages

High-stakes testing is something most people have experienced; however, the stigma around the testing has changed drastically within the last twenty years. Becoming more popular with the push to become smarter as a nation, high-stakes testing has become a kind of epidemic across the land. High stakes testing is detrimental to the future of United States education due to how it has become all-encompassing in schools, how accountable it makes a single test, and how the actual effects stray from the desired ones. Achieving the “standards” that are imposed upon the results of high-stakes tests is the single most important goal a school tends to make. Education standards are mainly focused on English and math, which is shown through how classes …show more content…

The accountability of the scores is meant to encourage teachers to adopt better and more effective methods of teaching, as well as to urge students to work harder. However the effects are more detrimental. Because of testing, students are more likely to be frustrated and discouraged at having to move so fast to cover all the ground needed. If a student is having a bad day or just is not a good test taker, all anyone can say is “tough luck.” The teachers will only focus on the select subjects tested on, and then only the select aspects they believe will be covered in the testing. Depending on how desperate a teacher is for good test scores, inappropriate preparations can be made before testing, sometimes even to the point of cheating. While having standards and a uniform teaching model, high -stakes testing is generally detrimental to the education of America. The importance of these tests has become the be-all and end-all of high school. The accountability of the testing will follow the student throughout his or her educational life. Despite being held in such high regard, the high-stakes testing effects are far from the desired and predicted

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Arguments Against Standardized Testing

885 Words | 4 Pages

True 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,

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High Stakes Testing Aa Summary

266 Words | 2 Pages

I applaud the American Evaluation Association (AEA) in taking a strong stance on the deleterious effects of high stakes testing, especially going so far as to promulgate their reasons and concerns. It is obvious from the statement that the AEA supports the importance of testing and accountability in improving education, but finds the current testing manipulation environment to be harmful for any positive improvements in education. Specifically, how the monolithic testing focus has increased dropout rates, created cultural insensitivity, turned the community against teachers and administrators, and driven curriculum writing with a myopic focus, of teaching to the test. In addition, the AEA highlights other adverse effects of narrowing the focus

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The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

199 Words | 1 Pages

Standardized testing not only stresses out students, but it also leads the teachers to go in a dilemma whether to focus on the curriculum or to get students ready for the standardized testing. No one has ever enjoyed taking a test in his or her entire educational history. Similarly Mr. Estrada’s 4th grade class was not every excited about taking standardized test. Each student has his or her own level of learning. As the students were taking the test, I noticed some students were panicking, while others were confused.

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High Stakes Testing Research Paper

1110 Words | 5 Pages

Discussion Post- Chapter 7- High stakes testing Claim: High stakes testing is an extremely problematic political issue within the education system because it holds all students to the same standards regardless of disabilities or disadvantages , it encourages educators to teach strictly on information that relates to the tests, and it can have major consequences for schools across the country that are unable to make Adequete Yearly Progress (AYP). Evidence: The Learning to Teach Edition Nine textbook outlines key disadvantages to high stakes testing. Although the textbook does consider some of the advantages, which include a focus of attention on the achievement of students and providing information on areas where students may need to improve,

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High Stakes Testing Pros And Cons

271 Words | 2 Pages

As a result, some schools are finding it tough to score above average on these test giving teachers no option, but to focus solely on learning outcomes that meet high stake test requirements. Additionally, students with low test score were always pressured by their teacher to achieve high test, scores and when they did not produce higher results, some educator, believed, if they punished the student they would become more serious with schooling and work hard to avoid the pressure or humiliating punishments (Hurley, 2007). I used to be an advocate of high stakes testing, but now I oppose high stakes testing sine I have seen first hand myself the damage it does to a student. Also, I several educators and professional use high stakes test results as a single indicator for measuring a person's competence or determining their future outcome, even though research has proven these tests is highly

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Standardized Testing Negatively Impacted Public Schools

1093 Words | 5 Pages

Standardized tests have been historically used to measure how students compare with each other and how much of a particular curriculum they have learned. Increasingly, standardized tests are being used to make major decisions about students, such as grade promotion or high school graduation, and schools(Galegroup). Standardized testing is not an effective measurement of how capable and knowledgeable a student is due to it negatively impacting schools, its serious limitations, and its harm on student’s learning. The greater emphasis that has been placed on standardized testing in public schools has created a significant negative impact on the education system.

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What Are The Benefits Of Standardized Testing

742 Words | 3 Pages

Many students are smart and understand the content, but it doesn't show on test scores (Gregory J. Cizek, 2001). In essence, testing brings out stress in even the brightest of students, messing with their heads come test day. The facts show that from the 50 states, 700 school districts claim that standardardized tests are causing greater anxiety than the average everyday assessments (Joseph Spector, 2015). In conclusion, student achievement

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Standardized Testing Rhetorical Analysis

769 Words | 4 Pages

Standardized testing has become a very controversial topic amongst the nation. There are two sides, one that agrees that these tests are doing well for students and school officials, and another that argues that these tests are hurting the students taking them and should be put to a stop. Norman R. Augustine wrote an article for the need of standardized testing, and Jessie B. Ramey States the ways that the tests are impairing the learning capability of the students. Norman uses three arguments that people opposing the standardized test would most often use.

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Standardized Testing Persuasive Essay

647 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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Standardized Testing Persuasive Speech

311 Words | 2 Pages

Today I will talk about how standardized tests should be modified. I will be talking about how standardized tests are taking up too much class time and they need to be shorter. Standardized tests should be shorter they take up too much time and children have no fun at all with just worrying about the test. Standardized tests take all the fun out of a child's day. This essay will persuade the reader the the government needs to modify the test’s because they are taking up too much time, they are sucking the joy out of children because they have to worry about the tests, and that the test just repeats what they already tested on.

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Schools Should Reevaluate High-Stakes Testing In Schools

799 Words | 4 Pages

However, it seems to contradict what teachers are trying to establish for students. Schools should reevaluate high-stake testing because tests are not accurately graded, tests are intelligence based, and tests creates curriculum conformity. High-stake tests are not accurately graded and are inconsistent. Students’ futures are in the hands of these unbiased scorers, yet these employees have an

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Diane Ravich Solutions Start Here Sparknotes

933 Words | 4 Pages

Tests should be low-stakes, flexible questions and evaluations should ask for thoughtful responses and not multiple-choice guesses, and a reinforcement of the fact that tests are not the “be all, end all” when it comes to the goal of the education system. By doing this, we would give

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Incentive Summary

449 Words | 2 Pages

In 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,

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High Stakes Testing Effects

927 Words | 4 Pages

There are so many results for a single test that does not even evaluate a student’s knowledge accurately. A single bad day could be disastrous to a student’s career, and a day of lucky guessing can float them by another year. Teachers are “graded” on their class’s results, so if a teacher’s class does poorly, that teacher may have an intervention coming.[PP1] Some people have even advocated for teachers’ pay and job security to be based upon the results of testing(“High-Stakes Test Definition”). Schools are given “grades” as well, and funding is based on them.

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Standardized Testing Essay

1178 Words | 5 Pages

It creates an obsession with test scores as a chief “accountably” metric for students, educators and schools. This system has led to the exams becoming an end instead of a means to an end. For instance, according the Joh Holt, within the learning environment “the air practically vibrates with suspicion and anxiety, the child learns to live in a daze, saving his energies for those small parts of his life that are too trivial for the adults to bother with, and thus remain his.” (E) This represents the crucial and harsh environment students experience when facing tests. It puts unnecessary stress on the minds of students and degrades their self worth into nothing.

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