Standardized Testing Should Be Abolished Essay

A Response to Steven Vogel’s “Grades and Money” In “Grades and Money,” Steven Vogel explains some of his main concerns with the education system today, particularly how student’s and teacher’s views of grades has changed. Vogel tells us that when he was in college, no one talked about their grades or even took them as seriously as many students do today. He states that everyone was more concerned about learning rather than the grade they received. Nowadays, Vogel believes that students obsess about their grades because better grades means a higher GPA, which ultimately leads to more money.

When I was a child, my parents would tell me and my siblings that we only have one job and that was to go to school and get good grades. Although we weren’t for school, we knew that we had to go because to be something in the future we need to have some sort of education to be something good in life, but there were some days that we despised school. The day that we despised school was the day after the teachers say to make sure everyone gets a goodnight sleep and a good breakfast, because everyone knew that there was a test coming the next school day. Education journalist Valeri Strauss, in her article How Can Anyone Take Standardized Test Scores Seriously when Stuff like this Happens? explains why the standardized test should not be used to evaluate children’s knowledge or to rate teachers. In How Can Anyone Take Standardized

In Kurt Wiesenfeld’s article “Making the Grade”, he address the issue that students want a higher grade than they deserve. He goes on to prove this be by giving examples of previous students that he has had and what can happen when students get the grades that they want and not what they deserve. In Wiesenfeld’s article he states that about ten percent of students that take his class do not care about their grades until final grades are over. “You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof,” Wiesenfeld stated.

The first obstacle that stops college students from obtaining a true education at college is all of their classmates, instructors, and even the admission staff who are perpetually stuck in

A study conducted throughout the entire continental U.S. showed that 70 percent of teachers reported to being stressed from standardized testing, with 66 percent believing that they spent too much time studying material that was going to be on the test. Teachers are pressured by their school district administrators to push this material, as these test scores determine the quality and budget of education their district will get. There is certainly a better way to divide up the budget in each school district. So far, this is what we have learned about standardized testing: It stresses out students, it provides disadvantages to low-wealth and minority students, and it puts pressure on teachers to study the common core test material rather than helping students learn and grow. It is important that the state knows how students from each district are doing in the classroom, but there is a much simpler way to do this.

The tests narrow down the curriculum to focus on the subjects that are on the test, forgetting about the other subjects. Standardized tests cannot measure all that schools teach like how to be a problem solver. Standardized tests have not improved America’s education system. Every once in a while the world will submit their schools performance and they will be ranked with

Standardized testing is an issue in the United States. Most people would agree learning determines on motiviation, "If the purpose of learning was to score well on a test, we lost sight of the real reason of learning." a quote by Jennie Fulbright, a multi-award winning author. Standard testing has been used in the educational system since the start of the twentieth century and has created some controversy along the way. Learning should be something every student is excited about, but in this day and age it's about doing well on an exam.

How Seriously Should Standardized Tests be Taken? I believe that our schools are taking our test a little too seriously. I believe that they should still use the test not to decide where we end up in life, but to direct our students to where they want to be in life. The world's people and where they end up in life is all decided on a worksheet that you answer questions on.

Synthesis Essay: Grade Inflation Grade inflation is a problem because it gives students a false sense of their ability to perform. For a student 's future, grade inflation means not having to put in the same amount of effort to achieve the grade they would want from high school and college. Grade inflation can be seen as a negative thing; it increased during the Vietnam War, when students became consumers in colleges, creates an easy path for advanced students, and can negatively affect the younger generation. A possible solution would be to slowly decrease the grade inflation, maybe so minimalist that it isn 't clearly noticed.

I believe that standardized testing is an amazing thing that we should continue to use but we should improve upon. Here are a couple different reasons why I believe we should continue testing. It helps measure improvement and what people need to improve upon, depending on how the test was formed and the thought process behind the test it can be useful for teacher evaluations, for my final reason why I'm pro standardized testing is the test can help evaluate the curriculum and show us if we need to enhance our curriculum. The first reason I'm pro standardized testing is It can help measure improvement and if we need to have specific children improve on different things and how we can help them.

Going Against the Standard According to Tim Walker, “Only 14% of parents say standardized testing is important in measuring school effectiveness” (Walker). A standardized test is a test that is given in a consistent or “standard” manner. Standardized tests are designed to have consistent questions, administration procedures, and scoring procedures. When a standardized test is administered, it is done so according to certain rules and specifications so that testing conditions are the same for all test takers. They often provide some type of “standard score” which can help interpret how far a child score ranges from the average student (Johnson).

Instead of focusing on learning the subject material, students may focus only raising their grade rather than learning the academic material.

In schools all around the nation, students are taking mandatory standardized tests. To some people, they are the dreaded tests that they never want to take. However, others love to take these standardized tests. Should these tests be mandatory in all high schools? I don 't believe so for many different reasons.

Introduction Standardized tests may be used for a wide variety of educational purposes. For example, they may be used to determine a young child’s readiness for kindergarten, identify students who need special-education services or specialized academic support, place students in different academic programs or course levels, or award diplomas and other educational certificates. Thesis Statement 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

CHAPTER 2 • Cause/s of Failures Students get poor grades involve external factors, like the subject matter is too challenging that makes the students unable to follow in the discussion. The other reasons have to with poor attitudes, like not doing homework dillydallying, and skipping class. Lastly, there are reasons related to personal issues, such as test anxiety and concentrating problems. (Kurtus, 2012) • Student-related Factors • Not Ready for College Students aren’t prepared for post-secondary work and lack foundational skills that hinder to achieve passing grades.