Do you struggle with taking tests? Do you wish that you never had a take a test again, well so do I? Standardized testing is a topic that many people would argue. Some people believe that all kids should be required to take these tests and that standardized testing is a good thing, but others argue that it puts too much pressure on kids. I believe that it puts too much stress on kids and it doesn’t show their full potential. Kids could be amazing writers, be very creative, have outstanding leadership, but these tests don’t show any of these talents. Standardized testing should not be required in school. Standardized testing is a test or tests that require all students to answer the same questions in a certain amount of time all the same way. The questions do not have to be high stakes tests, time limited, or multiple choice. It could be a fill in the blank or write your own response. They are organized so that the conditions for administrators, scoring procedures and interpretations are consistent and in a “standard manner”. These test usually matter a lot or the score counts for something big. As a result of this, these tests cause a lot of stress on kids. Standardized tests only measure a small portion of what makes education meaningful and what you have learned all year. It doesn’t measure creativity, critical thinking, motivation, determination, persistence, curiosity, reliability, self awareness, self discipline, leadership, courage, or honesty. It only shows what you
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. These test have a desire to devour classroom time and brain capacity.
As a student in high school did you ever feel like the standardized test are helping you or making you get in to a better college? Have you ever thought about how many hours students and teachers spend preparing for the standardized test? Many hours and studying are being put into those test but are they really effective and are the test doing the students good in life? Standardized tests are really just to effective, teachers and students spend too much time on them and it’s not doing the students any good, and even it’s not doing the teachers any good. Standardized tests in schools today in Ohio should be stopped because they are causing for teachers to be evaluated by the test results of how the students do on the tests, they are having the students more stressed about school and do they benefit you in colleges and university and do they really look at how well students do on them test.
Standardized Tests: Right or Wrong? Diane Ravitch, a historian of education, once said that, “sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent students do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.” These tests have been a part of American education since the mid-1800s(Is the Use), but now, many people are starting to realize that standardized tests are not as convenient as they thought they were. In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act required all schools in the United States to test students in grades two through twelve annually in reading, math, and science(Is the Use). But since then, the U.S. has dropped from 18th in the world in mathematics to 36th, with a similar change in science as well.
The tests are graded by a special machine that is not programmed to favor some students and not others. Yes, the tests are being graded non-discriminately but, this causes some concern for whether or not the tests are being graded accurately. Technology has been known to fail some times. The machines are very sensitive and the answers have to be filled in clearly and in a certain way or they will be counted wrong. Some students may know the answer but mark it wrong and their score will go down unfairly.
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
Some may argue if grades are a good measure of both intelligence and devotion to school, why are standardized tests necessary? Each school is different, so just evaluating a student based on grades leaves far too much room for variations. With different teachers and class sizes, there is really no baseline to compare one student’s academic excellence to
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 hurts children who think in different ways. This is quoted by Valerie Strauss, who makes a great point by saying children can only learn by the way it 's taught and it cannot be learned from other sources. Standardized Testing limits what children can learn and how they learn. Schools also spend an extraordinary amount on testing that could be going to better education and more funding to arts and extracurricular activities. Although, some say standardized testing is beneficial to the way students learn, statistics show that this is simply not true, standardized testing adds unnecessary stress on students, suppresses their creativity, and limits the creativity of teachers.
Standardized tests are one of the most popular ways schools attempt to evaluate academic intelligence of students, school districts, and teachers. These tests are used more specifically to evaluate student performance in the education system by testing their abilities in mathematics, english and sciences. By giving every student the same test, they are setting a standard idea for how well every student should score on the test, such as the SAT or the ACT, no matter the school or educational process they are receiving. Allowing every student to take the exact same test, gives the state a way to generalize student’s academic intelligence without having to do much work to make the testing one hundred percent fair. Standardized testing in schools should no longer be required because it discriminates against the less wealthy families, does not effectively measure achievement and becomes a distraction to the student’s learning environment.
However, there are other forms of standardized testing. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) this is a test of achievement from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Another form of tests are the PSAT, which is mainly the preliminary of the SAT test. “52% of teachers surveyed that they spend too much time on testing and test-prep” (Walker). Yet there are a few purposes of these tests, students would not be taking these tests if there were no
“Teachers shouldn’t be forced to teach for the test, they should be allowed to teach for the students. Students shouldn’t be forced to learn for the test, they should be allowed to learn for life,” by Senator Jon Tester. Should students take standardized tests? First, students take too many tests, testing takes up to much time, and teachers and parents spend too much money on them. To begin with, students take too many tests.
There is no perfect way of testing; however there are ways that limit the mind’s creativity and ability think freely. Even with this being known, public schools around the country are having to utilize standardized testing in order to place a score to their student’s intelligence. By using this system, the students don’t develop the capability to answer the open ended questions offered in society or real-life situations. These programs aren’t preparing them for life, but rather a multiple choice survey. Programs such as the ACT and SAT are extremely impactful on a student’s future; however students aren’t analyzing the text and formulating a response, but rather deciding what bubble they haven’t chosen in a while.
The average American student takes about 112 standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and 12th grade (Strauss). A standardized test is any form of test that requires the student to answer the same selection of common questions in a consistent matter, which makes it possible to compare relative student performance. Standardized tests restrict creativity, waste time, and waste money. We should get rid of standardized tests in our school system. Standardized tests limit a student’s ability to express creativity.
Theoretically, standardized tests are designed to give everyone the same chance to get into a college or into a certain program at college, without outside factors like easier/harder tests being issued to different people. Practically, every school learns differently than each other. In one class, they might have covered something that will be on the test whereas another school has yet to cover that topic or just simply doesn’t cover it at all, whether due to limited time or due to the amount of relevance that it will have on in an individual’s life outside of school. No matter what strategy someone comes up with to even out the playing field and make schooling fair to everyone, there will always pros and cons to all of them. Tests like the
A standardized test, according to W. James Popham of ASCD.org, is “any examination that is administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.” In standardized testing, examinees are instructed to precisely answer a specific set of questions, which are usually multiple-choices. Although standardized testing is believed to be an objective method to grade students, administers should understand that these tests are not only a waste of time, but also a waste of money. Standardized testing is irrelevant to a student’s education because it is an unreliable way to measure a student’s knowledge, causes stress, and hinders a student’s overall learning potential.