Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

Taking hours to complete a test, and even more hours to wait until all other students are done testing, is an experience American students know all too well. Every year students across the United States take standardized tests. Contrary to what the Board of Education may have students and parents believe, standardized tests are not as beneficial as they initially seem. When researching the topic, standardized tests not only divide students, but they also break students mentally while also preventing them from learning material and skills they will need later in life; standardized testing is not beneficial for students. In order to talk about the drawbacks of standardized testing a person must acknowledge its origins. Many of today’s standardized

It is an unfortunate fact that race and class go hand in hand, but standardized tests disproportionately affect students of color and students of a lower tax bracket negatively. According to a blog posted to Penn State, tests often make assumptions about a child’s background and social knowledge, and they tend to favor a white, middle-class background. (“How Effective is Standardized Testing''). It goes without saying this is extremely discriminatory and unfair. Children of color and white children experience very different things while traversing the paths of life, and not to mention children of different income brackets. It is not fair to base the questions on tests based on the experience of a select group of children, while not taking into consideration the experiences of others. In addition to racial biases, according to the same Penn State blog, parents that are in a higher income bracket spend more on additional preparation and tutoring for their children (“How Effective is Standardized Testing”). This fact is fairly obvious when given thought, and it is unfair to students who are not as financially stable. Parents can pay for their children to be extra prepared for standardized testing, while parents who are not as fortunate are not able to do that, and their children fall behind as a result; this further proves that standardized tests divide

The teach to test method is when teachers base the education and lessons of their classes to prepare them for a test. Going off of the Noah Webster Education Foundation, “The need to meet specific testing standards pressures teachers to ‘teach to the test’ rather than providing a broad curriculum” (“Part Two”). Rather than teachers instructing lessons that will educate students on topics and material that will help them in the future and help them grow as people, teachers are pressured to teach students solely material that will be on a future test; this material may be forgotten or be completely irrelevant once the exam is over. Standardized tests do not seem to prepare students for the future, they appear to do quite the opposite, in