Argumentative Essay On Standardized Testing

Although standardized testing has been a major part of schooling it has also had a negative impact on effective education. Standardized has made a huge impact on public schooling so much that not only does it affect the students but also the teachers. With the teachers now beginning to get raises or having their jobs on the line if their students fail the test, many students have not been getting the fullest education process that they could get. Students may not realize the impact that it has had on the type of teaching style that they receive because they are so used to it. With so many teachers not having a lot of time to teach what is on the test and the other things that they feel are important to students to know, a lot of

Standardized tests take away the creativity from the teachers forcing them to "teach to the test" this means memorizing

College is right around the corner and senior year will soon be coming to a close. Over the years, I have been exposed to all sorts of standardized tests. Some of these I can prepare for, like the ACT, while others seem to throw some curveballs, like the MAP Assessment. Either way, both tests help measure and determine my ability as a student. No student looks forward to taking exams, but I understand why they are essential for evaluating students. Standardized tests allow colleges and teachers to measure student’s ability as well as push students to study and take things seriously. For this reason, I think the number of them should be maintained.

Standardized testing has been ruling over the lives of students, making or breaking them in their education without fair judgement. Tests like the SAT and the ACT count for way too much when applying to colleges, which in turn limits the student 's capabilities to thrive in an environment that would benefit them. There are many problems within a standardized test that deems them to be unreliable as a true test of knowledge. Although designed to test groups of students on intelligence, standardized testing neglects to fairly acknowledge the abilities of each unique student which reflect their true capabilities.

Although standardized test has thrived for decades and being told that is the most objective way to test how much knowledge that students have dominated, it is also being placed under extreme criticism in recent years. A group of people, who reject the idea of placing children under measurement determined largely by striking numbers, initiated many organizations to prohibit standardized exam, for instance "Just say no to test!" (http://www.fairtest.org/). This nationwide hot debated also inspired Katrina Vanden Heuvel(2013), an American editor and publisher since 1995, also a frequent commentator on numerous political television programs, to write a published article "Stakes on standardized testing are too high" about Opting out of standardized tests, supporting the present changes of fundamental education.

Students shouldn’t be measured by what they get on standardized test since it doesn’t show other things that the students are good at. The author wrote, “ Contrary to popular assumptions about standardized testing, the tests do a poor job of measuring student achievement. They fail to measure such important attributes as creativity and critical thinking skills.” (Opposing viewpoints in Context pg.1) The author’s main argument is that standardized tests do not show the other skill that students, schools or programs have that isn’t shown just through a test. That Standardized testing doesn’t effectively measure the achievement of students. In his or her article, the author puts what achievement is but what is based on standardized test and not other things. A lot of attributes are not measured from the standardized tests. There are some places that have rewards for “shallow thinking” (Opposing viewpoints Pg.3)

Every year students all over the united states endure the pain that is standardized tests. Tests such as ISTEP as issues each year for students in grade three to eight. And every year strikes up controversy on this topic because it affects the majority of people (students, parents, and administrators). There are people that say that the tests are useful and accurate. Then others that say that the whole system is corrupt and needs to be taken down. Although there is evidence on both sides, the side that seems to be more accurate is the opposing side. The system isn’t doing its job correctly and needs to be change.

Since 1805 public schools have been the backbone of many Americans and their strive for an education. On top of this, public schools, according to the Huffington Post, equate to 91% or 50.7 million of those attending pre-Kindergarten through the 12th grade. But, with other school types such as year-round attending over 2 million students, the question begs, “Which school type provides their students with the best education”?

Standardized tests do not asses skills when their questions are generalized for an entire population. Most of the time, the tests are not in conjunction with classroom skills and behavior. These tests asses for general knowledge and understanding of students rather that their actual abilities. Since the questions are general in nature, it becomes very difficult for teachers to know how to improve the students understanding of a particular subject based on just general information. This leads to teachers “teaching to test” rather than educating students in a proper way based on the real needs of the classroom. Another reason these tests do more bad than good is the fact that teachers actually have a test booklet instructing them on what to do if a student vomits during a test. Students study so hard for these tests and simply cannot handle the pressure. So in the end, their final scores reflect not their abilities, but the influences of their surrounding factors instead.

If someone was to ask you “how do you define student achievement?” what would your answer be? Would you say student achievement is measured by state achievement tests? Or would you say that student achievement is too complex a subject to be objectively measured? There are many important skills students must be taught, and we need a way to effectively measure if they are in fact learning those skills. However, standardized tests cannot effectively show the learning of all students, especially those that are not good test takers. And of those skills that are tested, there are an endless number of arguably more important skills that aren’t being valued because they cannot be calculated. Furthermore,

In a recent Simpsons episode the principal takes. Bart and other low achieving students on a made up field trip during the school’s standardized testing so that the school’s standardized testing so that the schools test scores will be higher. If government funding countinuestobe tied so heavily to standardized tests scores that satire may become reality. In fact, it already has. Recently, several teachers in Atlanta were convicted of falsifying standardized test scores. Schools every year have be raising how high they want students to score on a test to compete with other schools and how much funding the school will receive. Many people think that standardized testing is a good tool for measuring how intelligent students

Tomorrow was the big day. The day that every student despised, but came every year. The problem that transcends national borders: standardized testing. Before I knew it, it was the final week, and time was running out. In my case, the Connecticut state test, the CMT, was in just two days. More than nervousness, there was a cloud of confusion surrounding this test for us students. Some said that preparation and study are necessary for this test, while most thought just the opposite. Some people were even saying that the scores for these tests somehow will affect our progress in school. Looking back, I don’t remember the test being all that hard, but it didn’t make sense to me. How could this one test, filled with questions that require shallow thinking and zero creativity, show the state the performance of my hard-working teachers, or the individuality and strengths of each student? Or on a larger scale, every student in the entire state?

To begin with standardized testing creates several critical problems for students and for the education industry. These tests are created to test over particular things. In the end these types of tests are only limited in the amount of knowledge that can be tested toward students. For example, “Standardized exams offer few opportunities to display the attributes of high-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity.” (“Standardized Testing Has Serious Limitations”). Even though these tests are able to attack certain subjects at the core, they still leave out very valuable and critical information that all students should know. In

Is there an efficient and effective way of measuring ability? Throughout history, mankind has strived to find a feasible manner of tracking and comparing, their achievements and achievements in knowledge. Recently, this pursuit has led to the popularized use of standardized tests. However, standardized tests are not an effective way of measuring the knowledge of humanity. Although, if used properly, they can reflect the gathered information, it is not always correct.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students across the nation are required to take many standardized tests. Which are used to determine student’s achievement, progress and growth. These tests supposedly say the outcome of how much knowledge a student has or has not learned. The stakes are high all because of a test score. Standardized tests may determine a pass or fail status for grade levels through K-12 or admission into colleges if you are taking an ACT or SAT standardized test. It is unfair and a very unreliable method to use to measure the performance of students. Standardized testing methods creates more harm than good and should be revised because many students, teachers, and schools suffer from this annually.