Arguments Against Standardized Testing

“When we began the map test I knew my students were gonna dread it, I myself dread it, and I am not even taking it. So I decided how about a reward for these kids, if you got above your past score you got 7 extra credit points for the test, which made a lot kids eager to get a good score. They went to sleep early, read before bed, and got a good meal beforehand, everything the test recommends the students to do before taking it. These kids fully ready to take it, mindset clear. When they got their scores back most were shocked because the did not score the same or higher, they got a lower score. All across the room I saw devastated faces because they wouldn’t receive their 7 extra points, and all their hard work was a complete waste. I decided to start an investigation so I called the test company and explained the situation and the only thing they told me was ‘well maybe they lied to you.’ this could not be true, 90% of these kids were A average students in an honors class.

What once began as a simple test administered to students yearly to measure understanding of a particular subject has, as Kohn (2000) has stated, “Mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole” (p.1). Today’s students are tested to an extent that is unparalleled in not only the history of our schools, but to the rest of the world as well. Step into any public school classroom across the United States and it will seem as if standardized testing has taken over the curriculum. Day after day teachers stress the importance of being prepared for the upcoming test. Schools spend millions of dollars purchasing the best test preparation materials, sometimes comes at the cost of other important material. Although test

I agree that standardized testing is fair, because it is the only way of knowing what students are learning. I believe that standardized testing is the best way of knowing if students across the country are learning what is being taught to them, and how they are being taught. If, everywhere else, students are achieving at a certain level, and in one area they are not performing as well as the others, then it allows us to look at what needs to be corrected in that area.

Work done on projects and group work shows students life-long skills. Teamwork, time-management, responsibility, imagination, and innovation are all qualities students learn from assignments other than testing. Test over core material are understandable, for grasping concepts is also important. But, standard exams do not require as deep of thinking or excessive hard work (Schulten). Schools taint children’s minds when they favor more individual testing and ignore group work. Also, standardized testing has pushed teachers to teach just what is considered “testing material.” Preparation for proficiency on these exams is hard to come by other than abundant sleep on the previous night and a full stomach. Tests are timed in the classroom and recorded by a computer and that student’s score reflects them as a whole. Commonly, students are given no compassion and feel condemned and criticized when they receive substandard test grades. Education needs to be taken farther than questions where bubbles are effortlessly filled

The opinions on standardized testing are as divided as the United States during the 2016 elections. More and more people are arguing that “our educational system has gone too far in its dependence on standardized testing” (595). As far as I’m concerned, standardized tests should not play a role in determining access to college admissions and scholarships, because the availability of resources and your chances of doing well on those tests depends on your background, family situation, location, and many other factors. Instead, they should make sure that the diplomas from all high schools are equal and that they can be certain the students have earned that diploma and know the material. The only reason why they do standardized testing is to make

We hate standardized tests. We hate how boring they are. We hate how much pressure that comes with them. And most of all, we hate how they only measure how well we can take a test.

There has been an ongoing debate on standardized testing as to whether or not it is necessary for individuals to complete. These exams are generally used to measure academic success and assembles a prediction as to how well a student will perform in subsequent courses.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Nobel Prize winning Physicist Albert Einstein, former Vice President Dick Cheney, light bulb inventor Thomas Edison, Oscar winning director Steven Spielberg, creative genius Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs, the visionary behind Apple; these iconic figures are often associated with genius, but were viewed as “slow” or “dumb” during school. These individuals were expelled or dropouts of school, because they were not meeting standards. After years of failing in school, these people went on to revolutionize the world, while inspiring many others to make a difference.

As a graduate student in a doctoral program, I have a fair share of standardized testing experience. Never have I been exceptionally great on standardized tests but have always willed myself to reach whatever benchmark I was challenged to accomplish. Coming from a home where Spanish was the first language and my parents barely had more than a middle-school level education, I had to discover ways to overcome academic and testing difficulties. Statistically, it is well documented that many of our country’s diverse learners have trouble positively representing themselves on standardized tests for a plethora of reasons; I can attest to this from first hand experience. From language barriers that cause deficiencies in vocabulary development to deficient levels of formal education in the homes, the barriers often compound to enormous heights for children from low-socioeconomic statuses and/or those where English is a second language within the home. Regardless of these facts, testing will continuously remain to be an accountability system that is vital in education. Although, in education we often fall short by using tests and data as the ultimate answer when it can be used for so much more. Through technology and assessment, the ability to pinpoint every single deficiency that student’s have is completely possible. Rather than using testing as the answer, educators must become better at understanding how to use testing as a tool. Furthermore, when stronger testing platforms and protocols can be created and implemented, the more our educational

According to Diane Ravitch, the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, after the No Child Left Behind Act passed, there began to be a lot more focus on teaching students how to be efficient test takers. In turn, knowledge has become second to test-taking skills (Ravitch 107). Edward Davis, the author of Lessons For Tomorrow, said “Kids are taught how to outsmart tests by recognizing trick multiple-choices” (Davis 95). There becomes more and more evidence proving how much curriculums at school are becoming centered around what will show up on the test (Ravitch 16). This causes students to learn only the basic facts and questions on the test rather than being encouraged to think and explore other ideas and concepts. Lynn Olson, author of Study Questions Reliability of Single Year's Test Score Gains, said in a study, “... 50 percent and 80 percent of the improvement in a school's average test scores from one year to the next was temporary and was caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning or productivity” (Olson 9). This shows that according to the study, tests are not helping students overall to improve their knowledge and learning. The knowledge teachers put into

All of this pressure is caused by a single test that does not even truly display a student’s intelligence. Many researchers have found that the content on standardized test is much too narrow and the multiple choice format limits creativity (Herman and Golan 3). There are so many other factors that truly display a person’s abilities and qualifications, such as involvement in the school, extracurricular activities, and accomplishments in

The extreme amount of effort and preparation needed to perform well is absurd, and gives “students less and less time to focus on their actual schoolwork in the hardest years of high school,”(Hudlow). Standardized testing has manipulated American education, creating an overly competitive school system where multitudes of pressure has been placed on teachers and students to perform well. Testing is against learning, memorization is a

Students stress about this test greatly since they do affect their educational future. Students get test anxiety being rushed through questions they may have learned years ago. Students know his whole test determines their future and cannot choke during it, but most of the time that is the result. The timing puts a toll on students. Students performing a math equation on a demanding task can be a hard on the memory of the brain. Standardized testing test us over many years of individuals education rather than task needed for after your educational career. Standardized testing is putting students at a high level of expectations while education is not focussing on important tasks, like laundry, cooking, and

Students are stressed. But, what is the goal of these tests? Are we trying to make students compete with one another to see who gets the higher score? Or are we preparing them for life outside of school? Maybe at one time these tests were used to measure how well the future leaders of our countries were learning, but now it is no longer like that. These tests seem to show no post-school value except to find the most successful kids and give them scholarships to college. Going along with this, everyone, depending on their grade, is required to take the same exact test. Despite their different ways of thinking, students are grouped together and the ones who are different are “wrong” simply because they were unable to learn it due to the way they were taught. Holding every single student to the same standards avoids the fact that everyone has a different mindset and each person may excel in different subjects. This poses a question: when will the system change? Students are held to such enormous pressure that when they meet the standards, they are convinced they’re stupid, and I struggle with this, too. However, it would be easier if all of the intimidation encountered when we are testing would just be withdrawn and students can be able to take a test, try their best, and if they don’t succeed, they can continue to work hard because, after all, a test shouldn’t determine how

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.