Standardized Testing Vs State Testing

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Standardized tests have caused so many teachers to be labeled due to how their students performed on tests. If their class performs well, the teacher is deemed to be a "good" teacher ; if their class does not perform so well than the teacher is often labeled "unfit" . Teachers dedicate so much teaching time to standardized tests and state exams when in all actuality, they are harming students more than they are helping them. For this and many other reasons, I believe that standardized and state tests do not measure educational quality and should not be a requirement. From pre-kindergarten until students have received all of their credits, they are required to take state test and exams, which have no reflection on how they 're …show more content…

Standardized tests have, on many occasions, been used for racial and cultural statistic purposes. Time Magazine writer, Noliwe M. Rooks, wrote in an issue, "In Virginia only 45% of black students in each school must pass standardized math tests while 68% of whites, and 82% of Asians must do the same. Officials say that these plans are not discriminatory because students who are the farthest behind must progress the most, but critics reason that if one expects less from some students, those lower educational expectations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy for school districts and those students will fall even farther behind." With the data collected from these tests, test makers can gamble on how other groups will perform on tests, making it easy for some and hard for others. Rooks added, "Do standardized achievement tests unfairly advantage white and Asian students and disadvantage the rest? According to a group of educational organizations and civil rights groups the answer is yes. The recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education pointing out that black and Latino students in New York score below whites and Asians on standardized tests so consistently that although they are almost 70% of the overall student body, they are only 11% of students enrolled at elite public schools. As a result, the complaint argues that New York City is in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because schools rely on a test that advantages one racial group over another. ' ' Such reports prove that state and standardized exams have rigged results and do not measure educational quality. Based on the evidence supporting my statement, I believe that state exams and standardized tests should no longer be a requirement. They often harm students academically and have more negative results than positive ones. The questions asked on mandatory test favor certain groups, yet make it harder for others. They are not fairly made and are biased

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