“The intent behind closing these gaps is to break the connection between race or family income and achievement while at the same time continuing to improve the performance of the top students. ”(28) Gaps between race and wealth have always been issues in schools. Historically, children living in poverty are more likely to score lower on tests than those
History of Texas accountability system A history of the accountability system in Texas provides insight into the current state of school accountability in Texas. The Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (TABS) was a criterion-based assessment created by legislative mandate in 1978 to test basic mathematics, reading and writing skills of students at grades three, five and nine. In 1983 it was mandated that ninth-grade students who failed the test had to re-test each subsequent year. Although students were not denied a diploma for failure, campus and district level performance of students was reported publicly and represented the beginning of ‘high stakes’ accountability for large-scale assessment in Texas (Texas Education Agency, Pearson Education
According to Wayne Camara and Amy Schmidt in “Group Differences in Standardized Testing and Social Stratification”, This is a big reason minority groups tend to do worse. The minority students who come from high socio economic households tend to do decently well on standardized testing, however, they are far from being the majority and often aren’t discussed at all when these topics come up. Unfortunately, though, as we have seen there is a still a lag of minority groups compared to other groups even when the household status is the same. This is speculated to be due to the fact that they are often lacking in academic preparation due to inner-city schools and lack of rigorous courses (Camara and Schmidt, 1999). They often come from households with low expectations and family support, which are two incredibly huge factors when it comes to academically succeeding.
: In my opinion, standardized testing is beneficial but also flawed. I agree they’re non-discriminatory because the content is equivalent for all students, but teachers are “teaching to the test,” leaving out additional learning opportunities. From experience, I believe the tests are
Standardized testing has not improved education in America. Standardized tests have been issued in schools all across the nation for years now. Some people like them and some people don’t. They do not help the student learn more information than they would without the tests. The U.S. has dropped from 18th highest scores in schools in the world to be in the 30’s on almost all of the subjects on the test.
Despite an increase of education scores in the past decade, the United States still trenches behind many countries. Scores found in the Programme for International Student Assessment, the most popular cross sectional test, finds that the United State ranks thirty-eight out of seventy-one countries in test performances of english, math and science literary. But within the country itself contains a deeper issue. The term “achievement gap” is used to describe the polarity between the academic performances of minorities, such as Black and Hispanics, to those of Asians and White students; which are found to be much lower than the latter. Besides test scores, this achievement gap is most apparent in grades and drop-out rates as well.
But test prep is only part of the picture, with much of the test-score differential originating far before any student even thinks about standardized testing. From the beginning, Biamonte (2013) explains, students from higher-income families have more opportunities: they attend better, higher-funded schools with more rigorous curriculums, AP classes, and dual credit, all of which impact standardized test performance. Consequently, higher-income students have an advantage over their lower-income
Another thing that places students of color at a disadvantage in college admissions is the persisting cultural bias in high-stakes testing. “High-stakes” tests are those that are tied to major consequences, such as admission to college, or even high school graduation. Fair education reform advocates have long been citing an extensive record of standardized testing concerns, many of which relate to racial bias and discrimination. As researcher and author Harold Berlak explains in the journal Rethinking Education: Standardized testing perpetuates institutionalized racism and contributes to the achievement gap between whites and minorities. For instance, the deeply embedded stereotype that African Americans perform poorly on standardized tests
No one ever said school was easy. It takes quite a bit of hard work and preparation from both the students and teachers. All within a school year there are different homework, assignments, projects, tests, quizzes, presentations and much more to try and fit into an already busy course schedule. To add to that the Education Reform Law of 1993 was introduced to schools, which required that all public school students have to be tested in the subjects of English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science and Technology Engineering. Those set of tests are called Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) and they are meant to measure students performance based on the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework.
“Standardized tests are unfair and discriminatory, because students with diverse backgrounds and skill levels are expected to answer questions written for the white, abled majority. " I think this point is very hard to argue with because if these tests are written for the white students, then how are students with a different background or diversity supposed to do well? One improvement could be that maybe there isn’t just one test for the whole country or the state, but instead there are multiple tests for multiple regions. Certain regions get certain tests because of the situation they are in. This makes sense and I believe it would improve the scores and even if it didn’t
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.
Don’t you think students take way to many standardized tests? Some people think students take way to many tests, other people think that the students testing time is fine. I think that students spend way to much time testing because students use too much class time testing, testing is affected by many factors, and standardized tests don’t measure all a student knows. First I will be talking about how students spend way to much time taking standardized tests. My evidence is that even 3rd graders spend at the least 1,240 minutes on standardized testing.
According to the 2015 PISA scores, the United States ranks 41st in math, 24th in reading, and 25th in science. The PISA is a worldwide assessment that tests 15-year-olds from around the world on key concepts of each core class (reading, math, and science). Despite all the standardized tests we have implemented to “improve and record students achievement,” the U.S. continues to slip. In reality, standardized tests have not improved student achievement and in consequence, students are having increasing levels of anxiety, which is not good for the health of all kids. To begin with, there has been no improvement in student achievement since the “No Child Left Behind” Act passed back in 2002.
Student scores on standardized tests have always been varied, as some students tend to score very highly, while others tend to score very low. Honors and AP teachers have tried to correct the score variety by offering help and tutoring sessions for the students in their classes. Many teachers who do this, however, have been reporting that, although there have been a large amount of students that have been coming to the sessions for help, scores have remained as varied as they ever have been, perhaps even more so. Are the students who scored poorly on the test at fault? A recent studies says: maybe not.
Should students take standardized test? “If my future were determined just by standardized tests, I wouldn’t be here. I can guarantee you that” - Michelle Obama. Students shouldn’t take standardized tests. With testing, students have too much pressure, They can have a better end of the year, and it takes up learning time.
