Standardized Testing Informative Essay

Even though you most likely weren't, if you were at Wesleyan University, one of the nation's top liberal arts school, you would see kids that looked like kids at any other college. You wouldn't see the difference. Wesleyan University has joined an accumulation of colleges that have dropped a standardized test as part of the entrance requirement. Six hundred more have diminished the weight of the test. As a result, many students from varying backgrounds can now attend this college. But why are standardized tests still around?

Standardized testing has been around for many years. In 1905, it simply began as a 90-minute exam for those looking to go into college. However, look at what it has become now. Even Obama came out to say that, "learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble" and that it "takes the joy out of teaching and learning". In other words, standardized testing doesn't belong in learning. Here are some reasons why.

A 2001 study conducted by the Brookings Institution found that 50%-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were simply "fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning". Standardized testing doesn't tell really help colleges who is better prepared and who isn't. Because of this, students that might actually be better equipped for college might slip through the cracks, not even considered because the standardized test proved an unfair barrier. Next, standardized testing doesn't test some things that are important to be a good student. I feel that the test cannot measure our creativity, our intuitive ability, nor our critical thinking, among many qualities that can define a truly worthy student. Since it can only measure our mathematical reasoning and our literacy, it becomes a test of what we are, not what we can be, which is what colleges should look