Is Standardized Testing Good Or Bad

Standardized testing (SATs), in the United States has been present for years and has caused plenty of teachers, students, parents, and other individuals who are informed about it to have different perspectives and opinions on it. Before doing my research on the different opinions people had on standardized tests, I always believed they were encouraged by professors and school facilities. As a student myself and on the behalf of other students, standardized tests were always perceived to be stressful and unjust. Test taking was never a strength of mine especially if the test was timed because it just added more pressure to answer the questions quick. In high school, my teachers never discussed how they felt towards the SATs, which made

The poorer schools have to cut the electives that the students enjoy just for a test that claims a minor's intelligence level. Meanwhile the richer schools have electives, amazing sports teams, and even pay more money for more help on majors to prepare for the test. It is unfair that not every school gets the same preparation; some city schools do not get as much time which puts that school at a major disadvantage compared to the others. Almost every school spends money to pay for something unnecessary, when the money could go to much more important projects throughout the school. “Standardized-testing regimens cost that states some $1.7 billion a year overall, or a quarter of 1 percent of the total K-12 spending in the United States, according to a new report on assessment finances” (Ujifusa). The money used for the tests could go towards sports, clubs, the quality of the education that the students are receiving, and even the school itself. Some schools in states other than Ohio got the memo and decided opt every student in the school out of standardized testing, which brought many benefits to the school and its students. The Curriculum Review states that “Standardized-testing will go by the wayside in Idaho public schools this fall, at a savings of $500,000.” Schools in Idaho saved money by the students not taking standardized tests, and that the money helped the school's academic clubs, electives, sports teams,

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. Furthermore, preparing for rigorous standardized testing is taking time away from teaching the required curriculum. The excessive testing is also imposing an unhealthy amount of stress of students. Therefore, the Ohio Department of Education should reduce standardized testing due to its cultural biases, high-stakes, and reduction in curriculum.

The question of whether standardized tests are doing more good than harm has been becoming more and more of a controversial topic. This is especially important because it is a high school graduation requirement to pass these types of tests. Students shouldn 't have to pass a statewide standardized test before graduating because some students may be bad test takers, students may not be able to afford tutoring, and may struggle with connecting what they learn in class to the real world.

Many teachers fail to differentiate what is important and what is not. To be easy to grade, tests cannot measure higher order thinking. Critical thinking often gets left behind and memorization has taken over. Many students just simply don’t perform well on tests, but with these standards schools are held to it puts alot of stress on teachers who then push it onto their students. According to a psychology teacher, Melissa Hurst states that standardized test scores are greatly influenced by non academic factors, such as fatigue and attention span. “ Standardized test items are not parallel with typical classroom skills and behaviors. Due to the fact that questions have to be generalizable to the entire population, most items assess general knowledge and understanding.”(Hurst) These tests limit many things and cause a huge disadvantage to not only students, but to the schools as well. Scores don't provide very much information when evaluating a student's achievement, a teacher's competency, or the success of a particular school or program. To make such judgments, you need to go beyond the scores themselves and make some inferences about what they might mean. This is all just another reason that standardized testing shouldn’t be used to determine how well a student

In America, there is quite a lengthy history of standardized testing. It all began in 1838 when the American education system began to form ideas of having tests that would be transformed into formal measures of student academic achievement. They were originally created to hopefully show student improvement and academic knowledge, which is also their most common use up to today. The commonly dreaded standardized test, the ACT, was created in order to help more colleges improve their enrollment numbers, and colleges needed a new standardized test in order to do so. But lately, these forms of standardized testing seem to be causing damage to students. To conclude. whether it be mentally, physically, or emotionally, these tests have been wearing

It is average for a student in high school to take multiple standardized tests that judge how successful they will be in the future. Students tend to be stressed out, under pressure and try to cram everything they’ve learned from the past 18 years of their lives into their head for a test that may mean success or failure. In my opinion, standardized tests should not be mandatory to take for multiple reasons such as people may not be excellent test takers and other factors that come into play when an important day comes up; illnesses, stomach ache, stress, homework, studying and lack of sleep.

There is a doctor, Thomas Armstrong, that focuses on youth development, and he believes that standardized tests don’t help or let anyone, whether it’s teachers or students, improve. He wrote that “Standardized tests don’t provide any feedback on how to perform better. The results aren’t even given back to the teachers and students until months later, and there are no instructions provided by test companies on how to improve these test scores” (Armstrong). Since the test companies of standardized tests don’t give feedback to teachers and students, it is impossible for them to know what they need to work and improve upon. If students can’t improve their scores, they are stuck either staying in the same spot or downgrading in the education system. Students that get advanced scores on tests are able to move ahead and have better opportunities in their schools, but students that don’t score well are left behind, sometimes barely moving from grade to grade. When making changes to the schooling system, Thomas Jefferson said “twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually” (Congressional Research Service, 269). The president of the United States of America, when setting up a part of the education system, said that only some of the extra-intelligent students would be taken and given amazing opportunities. He himself said that they would be taken from the rubbish,

Everyone has had to endure the pain at some point in his or her life. The awful, long hours of preparation for one thing: standardized testing. These tests in many states are beginning to get harder in order to align with the new common core standards, and are not only being used to grade students, but teachers as well. Because of the increase in the level of difficulty of the tests, students are beginning to have anxiety. Teachers and parents are not getting a little taste of it as well as they become such a prominent part of the evaluation of students success. People aren’t realizing that standardized testing is not a reliable way of measuring the success and performance of students. Many people think that because it is a computerized

Although standardized testing has its cons, it also has pros. For example, Two important things Standardized testing provides is the ability to see students weak areas and progress. Although having the ability to see students weak areas may sound like a good thing, it really isn’t. The ability to see weak areas is moreso a benefit to educators when teaching students so they know what to help students with and fix so students can improve in these areas. But, teachers don’t really help students one on one rather as one big group of up to 30+ students at times. So, since teachers can’t teach every student one on one and really fix those weak areas it leave the students with information that they still might not understand or it might help the student in a minor way. So in the long run, students will never truly fix those weak areas and, going back to self esteem, can lower the way they view themselves as a student/lower their self esteem. Next, seeing student progress isn’t really something that helps students other than letting them know what they approved on, which doesn’t help students academically, or showing students what they didn’t do well on that time around compared to a previous standardized test, going back to the weak areas. Seeing student progress is moreso a way to assess teachers and see if they are truly helping the students and it’s more of a reflection on the teacher rather than the

While can be beneficial, standardized testing isn't improving American education. Standardized testing evaluates only the individual performance of a student instead of the overall growth of a student over the course of a year. In my opinion, Standardized testing is not enhancing education in America.

School’s are using standardized testing for the wrong reason. “A standardized test is any examination that’s administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests” (Popham, 1999). The most common examples of aptitude tests are the SAT and the

Standardized testing ugh. The absolute worst part of school.Testing is so dreadful because it’s time consuming, forget consuming it’s devouring, teachers and students don’t get the graded test back fast enough, and last but definitely not least students already have to study for classroom test weekly now you want to overload their brains! This why I am against standardize test.

The silence in the room, with only the sound a pencil makes with the paper, produces the heart-thumping atmosphere standardized testing gives to students. Most students experience the overwhelming stress that is brought upon their academic life from SAT, ACT, or any standardized tests. They see them as one of the most important factors for college acceptance. The constant worry that sits on their shoulders will not disappear until testing is over, and there is nothing they can do about it until they hopefully get a letter from their dream college.

Due to the fact that standardized testing provides an opportunity of change from a world of fantasy into a reasonable one, this method should be enforced throughout the nation. Although some may beg to differ that children are too young to face the torture of testing, they fail to realize that if children don’t develop these skills at an early age, they will struggle in the future. By exposing children to the new concept of testing at an age where