Standardized Testing In Outliers

Often when the term standardized testing is used in the United States it is referring to the tests given in our public education system. However, standardized testing doesn’t only refer to multiple choice tests given to children at the end of the year to see if they can move on to the next grade. A standardized test is any test that is scored and administered in a constant, or “standard”, way (Procon.org, 2015). These tests are designed to control for as many of the variables that can influence the assessment (Thomas & Allen, 2012). Standardized tests are used in work settings, licensing, in addition to their use in education. Since the 1800s standardized testing has been used in the American education system

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:

College was always one of my biggest goals and something i do not plan on giving up on not even with the thought I possibly will be in debt during or after i get my college diploma. But this isn't the same situation for other young adults throughout the US, a lot of young adults don't even dream of college because of student debt. The thought of it alone almost made me feel like it’s something impossible.

Many students either care too much about the tests, and therefore try to cheat, or they don’t care enough about the test, making the results worse than they normally would be. Ryan Deffenbaugh explains that one college, along with many others, no longer requires test scores for applicants because there were many arguments that “the scores are not a great indicator of future success in college, and that a billion-dollar-test prep industry creates an unfair playing field for students from families with lower incomes” (Deffenbaugh, 16). This college, Purchase College, is one of many that has the opinion of standardized tests being unreliable when accepting students. They don’t show true intelligence because anyone can get some luck when guessing. An article states, “Kids learn early on that they don 't have to think outside the box, they don 't have to be creative, collaborative or be critical thinkers. They just have to be good at memorizing rote facts and eliminating the wrong

SATS and ACTS have been used for numerous years as a way to gauge a student’s academic success while in college. Students have the choice which test they would prefer to take and most colleges do not prefer one test over the other. There are a few key differences between the SAT and ACT, which may make one test more suitable than the other for those taking the tests. Many studies have proven that the SAT and ACT are not the best judge of future success, and that colleges should focus their applications more on past grades and accomplishments to decide which students should be accepted to their university. SATs and ACTs are not an effective measure of college readiness and future academic success.

Standardized tests should not be eliminated completely, but should rather be evaluated in addition to other factors such as grades, extracurricular activities, and volunteer hours. This would take pressure off of students during standardized tests, allow colleges to see how well-rounded the students are, and give students who are better in other areas

Over recent years, the debate of whether or not to continue using standardized testing to evaluate college applicants has been somewhat controversial. Although college may not necessarily ensure success in the future, is not the only path in which success can be found, and is not a good path for every student, a majority of students that graduate high school want to go to college and need to know what it is they need to accomplish before their four years are up. Some of the colleges shifting to the idea of accepting applicants not based on test scores think that the potential to do well in college shouldn’t be based on these things. These argue that personal traits and characteristics are what determine success. Traits like these aren’t truly measurable though. A student's character should be a factor in their acceptance to college, but this must be supplemented with grades and standardized tests scores.

Levine claims that schools are starting to expand the quality of the student body by the rate of the students standardized test (22). Colleges are not looking to get students who do not apply themselves, but also, colleges are making it harder for the poor students that are trying to better their education. Along the same lines, Graff reminds us of the competition of comparing test scores in school (249). Graff explains, in school scores are made up by one’s reading ability, instead of, like in sports, the actual competition itself or arguing (249). Overall schools are using test scores as a way to compete with education instead of looking out for the best interests of the

Every year, the daunting prospect of undergoing standardized testing brings anxiety to thousands of high school students, and for good reason: a student’s performance on standardized college admission exams - most importantly, the ACT and SAT - is a major determinant in deciding where they will go to college. For decades, such standardized tests have been universally accepted as part of the admissions process: proponents argue, as Syverson (2007) explains, that such tests are the only way of standardizing college admissions when students from different schools have such widely varying profiles. However, in the past several decades a growing anti-testing movement has begun to poke holes

In today’s educational setting, teachers must teach according to a strict curriculum, following a timeline of when to teach the lesson, how long to teach it for, and how to teach it. At the end of each lesson, a test is given to the students, and then a new lesson begins, pushing the previous lesson out of the brain probably never to be used again. Better yet, these lessons that are being taught by teachers are not showing up as frequently in standardized testing. Instead, these focus more on logic, strategy, and time-management, or how fast one can finish a test. Unfortunately, while some kids can prosper under timed conditions, many are not good at multiple-choice only tests, and they are frowned upon for low scores. Leslie Rayburn is a teacher in Santa Cruz, California, and she, too, believes that this is unfair to students, and to teachers who are graded based on their students’ grades. She explains that, ‘the children who perform poorly on multiple choice standardized tests (but perhaps might perform well on an open-ended form of test) are labeled as “less intelligent’ and the school suffers” (Rayburn) Since progress of a student is mainly viewed based upon the outcome of standardized test scores, the lower-performing students are seen as “not college- ready”, which creates a roadblock to a student about where they may want to attend college. The fact of the matter is that no two students are the same, learn the same, or test the same, so standardized tests are inaccurate measurements of a student’s full learning capability and

My topic revolves around the type of role standardized tests should play in college admissions. I plan to argue that colleges should put less emphasis on standardized tests when choosing the best applicants to attend their universities. Many colleges are taking the approach of ignoring standardized tests results, and either implementing new tasks or stressing other factors when considering the best applicants. Test-optional schools may require additional essays and personality tests, or examine the applicant’s coursework to determine academic excellence and degree of difficulty. The research I collected suggests that standardized tests are biased against various races and classes, GPA is a better indicator of college success, and test-optional universities lessen barriers and increase diversity within their institutions. There have been an increasing number of students who are misrepresented by a single score, yet academically succeed in college nonetheless. That is the primary reason why standardized tests should not be as highly regarded as other factors such as high-school GPA.

“We not only have common core state testing, but we also have SAT tests. The SAT is

These tests promised a way to identify kids who could go further in their education, while separating them from the kids who learned slower and would need extra help. The tests also came with the notion of academic tracking in order to steer students onto a career path deemed appropriate for them (Gershon, 2015). Attempting to measure a student’s intelligence through a standardized test is beyond absurd. All students learn at a different pace. This means that, even if a student may not know a skill at the time of the test, it doesn’t mean that they will never know it. Unfortunately, standardized testing only gives a rough estimate of what a student can do or knows. It is impossible to tell if a student will improve, or even tell if the student just guessed on all of their answers for the test. This explains how standardized tests do not measure the correct information that school’s are actually searching

Out of all the issues with American education today, one of the most overvalued yet problematic for students is the grades and scores that represent their classroom proficiency and content knowledge. It is true that today, in the United States, the easiest and seemingly most reliable way to track student performance and rank schools by quality of education is by simply marking students based on their scores on assignments and assessments done in school or on standardized exams designed to measure mastery of content, and by comparing and analyzing the