Case Study Of Standardized Testing

Standardized testing is used throughout every grade in school today. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of standardized testing to access students’ progress. Many teachers feel that they must teach to the test and parents feel that their child is spending too much time testing and not enough time learning. According to a new study, preschools spend an average of 4.8 hours, third graders spend an average of 20.6 hours, eighth graders spend an average of 25.3 hours, and eleventh graders spend an average of 22.5 hours on testing (Layton, 2015). Although, some parents, teachers, and schools feel that standardized testing have a purpose and show the growth of their schools and classrooms, many parents and teachers are fighting to have standardized test limited or removed from schools, because they feel that standardized testing are becoming harmful to students.

Standardized testing in the United States started in the mid- 1800’s (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). This kind of testing was originally created to measure students’ performance and progress in school (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). In recent years, the public school system has relied heavily on the information this test provides, in doing so creating controversy. Other than being a student myself, and participating in multiple standardized exams such as, CSAP, ACT, and SAT, I do not have much background knowledge on this debate. The debate over standardized testing has raised this inquiry question: What are the effects of standardized testing on the United States public education system?

Thesis: The effects of standardized testing have negatively impacted students across the United States. High Stakes testing has led to a decrease in student motivation, high retention rate, and a notable change in early dropout rates.

What is standardized testing? Standardized testing is a test which is given to students to evaluate the knowledge which they know. Testing can be in all subjects and topics in education. In Minnesota there is the MCA ( Minnesota Common Assessment). The MCA can be taken from elementary to high school, and the students are tested on subjects they have learned from the past. In Minnesota the MCA is a test which the government requires students to take. On a national level there is the ACT and SAT. These are usually taken as entrance exams to colleges and universities. ACT and SAT are two different types of test they have differ in grading systems and some colleges take both or one of the two. Why are standardized test given? The test are given so people in charge can evaluate the performance of the student and school; also gage the knowledge of the student. But standardized test like the ACT can not be an effective way to improve instruction and performance because it is a competency focused test. The reason why standardized test are competence: They test students on how well they can eliminate the incorrect answers to find the correct one. This is an inefficient way because what if the test taker crosses out the wrong answer, this forces the taker to choose between two wrong answers. There's needs to be tested efficiently and accurately gage their knowledge.

Standardized testing has become a controversial topic in recent years, parents, students, teachers, principals and almost anyone who has a relationship with education is affected by this topic. People are either for or against standardized testing, some believe it is the only fair way to compare students others believe that the tests are too greatly stressed in school and are a nuisance to education. Standardized tests are stressed greatly, students learn testing material all year not focusing on anything else deemed unimportant by the test makers. Every student has the same amount of time and question on tests; they also are tested on the same subjects which the test makers believe are most important for children to learn. Standardized tests are used for many things such as ranking students on a national basis and government funding for schools.

Before I started the interview I explained to each participant what the research question is. I would say something like this, this interview is gathering opinions and feelings on the question of if division I college athletes should be compensated. Student athletes are provided scholarships, and sometimes other incentives for their performance, but they also put an enormous amount of time into the sport. I will ask you a series of questions to gather your opinion on this topic, it should take no longer than 10 minutes. Are you still willing to answer? All of the people were still willing to participate in the interview after I said this to them. I ended up doing four interviews because I wanted to see if there was a difference in opinions between ages and genders. I interviewed two males and two females. The males were the ages of 48 and 23. The females were the ages of 52 and

Alarming is an understatement when it comes to the anxiety and stress standardized testing brings. Students are told how vital these tests can be to college acceptance, class placement, and school ranking, so it is no surprise that they lead students to become stressed out and anxious about taking the assessments. According to education researcher Gregory J. Cizek, "illustrating how testing... produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both" (2). The affect standardized testing has on students is unacceptable, no students should be anxious and uneasy about going to school due to a test. To continue, the Sacramento Bee reported that "test-related jitters, especially among young students,

Thoughts about the ACT or SAT give most students sleepless nights. Well, it is an important test but getting overwhelmed by it is not going to help. These few fun facts about the ACT/SAT are just what you need when you are looking for a short, refreshing distraction from the intense studying. The ACT/SAT should be the main factor in college acceptance because it gives minorities an equal chance of admission, it provides a standard for all students of all high school backgrounds to achieve, and test you on the basic skills you need to know after leaving high school anyway.

Standardized testing is used to tell students level in certain areas of academics; however, it is actually a waste of time and money.

Research shows negative effects are associated with standardized testing because they may place extreme stress on the student and teacher, restrict teacher’s ability to educate properly, lead to inaccurate results that do not reflect the whole student, and generate discriminatory situations for minorities and special education students.

Living in the United States the emphasis on testing is extremely high. Testing has been around for years , however has increased to an all-time high since 2002 when the Bush administration brought about the No Child Left Behind Act and mandated standardized testing in all 50 states. Since initiation of these annual tests, the degree of student success the US has shown compared to other countries has declined. With the No Child Left Behind Act all students, as in 100% of students, were supposed to be at or above grade level in testing as of 2014. However, the US is two years out and its students are nowhere close to that 100% goal.

I definitely agree with Judge Jerry Baxter’s decision to incarcerate the teachers accused of cheating on standardized testing. Nine out of ten teachers who were brought before Judge Baxter were sentenced anywhere between one and seven years in jail. These, so called, “educators” were accused of giving students answers and erasing and changing answers on tests after they were turned in. Overall, the behavior of these teachers showed poor moral conduct and most likely ended up “ruining” their students education.

Nine year old Gianna is in fourth grade, and took her first standardized test last year. Gianna is a marvelous student and is very attentive in class; however, when it came to the test she did not do well. The whole time she was stressed out, and had no idea what she was doing because she could not focus. Her teacher spent so much class time trying to teach the class about the test that she did not get to learn much about the other subjects. For example, Gianna loves social studies, but her teacher mostly focused on math and language arts. Standardized tests are a form of test that requires all students to answer the same questions, or questions that are similar to each other. Standardized tests have gotten worse throughout the years because

Standardized testing is a collectively accepted aspect of education today, it is used to evaluate if students of all ages are being shaped and educated up to the common standard set by the government. Standardized testing can be seen in almost all educational settings from kindergarten classes to exit exams for nurse practioners. Standardized testing came into play when former President George Bush ran his campaign on being the education president and enacted the No Child Left behind Act. Under this act all educational districts are subject to standards and core values they must meet to receive accreditation and funding from the government. Just the other day many students at Moorcroft high school student had to take a

We began the interview and recorded all their answers through a recording device for a more profound analysis in a better environment. We used a semi-structured interview study for our research. We conducted this type of interview because we wanted the patient to feel comfortable in the interview. But aside from that, we also wanted to follow the protocol during the interviews to gather all the information we needed. Consent was obtained from all the participants.