Considering All the Facts: Mistakes About Standardized Tests

With the added pressure to do well in school, standardized testing becomes a means to added stress, anxiety and further complicates the pressure to succeed in a student’s life. Rather than a focus on learning and understanding, school has become a massive rope skill memorization test designed to have students memorize subjects to pass the test, and forget the material the next minute for the next test. When asked to speak about standardized testing, education chairman, Larry Taylor, said “It’s heart-wrenching, and it’s also insanity when you see the level of achievement these kids are already doing and yet they can’t even pass this test.” (Smith). The utilization of standardized testing further exemplifies and validates the idea that no matter how hard or long you work in school, your work will never be worth the few answers you write for the

Standardized tests are largely unnecessary, ineffective, and overused. Despite the enormous monetary resources and hours that companies pour into the making of standardized tests, the unholistic pen and pencil approach of these tests tends to assess students' test-taking ability rather than their actual intelligence. All this new testing leaves less time for classroom learning than generations past. This time may seem negligible at first; however, it adds up considering the number of ACTs, SATs, graduation and annual state tests students take over their academic career. What little time left is sacrificed for busy work and teaching for the tests. Nevertheless, who can blame teachers when the results of standardized tests determine their job performance? The tests were mainly designed to showcase the efforts of teachers and schools to the state, and a reduction of standardized tests is integral to fixing our educational

While a few standardized tests over a student’s school career can be helpful to make sure students are on track and teachers are educating their students, the United States education system has far too many standardized tests. The U.S should reduce the number of tests given to students each year. The current amount of testing stresses students and forces teachers to “teach to the test”. Standardized testing has not and will not improve the American school

Standardized testing has diminished the true intention of schooling, for it “deliberately orchestrate[s] [an] assault on public education” (Ravitch 106). In an ideal world, students would look forward to receiving a diverse education; however, the current craze on standardized testing does not allow anything close to learning diversities. During a budget cut, a school’s first thought is to reduce “the non tested subject[s]”, which means everything besides math and reading (Ravitch 106). State required tests target the mathematic and reading subjects intensely; therefore, why should one teach anything else? “[F]ederal policies value only test scores”, hence the enthusiasm of schooling institutions

State-mandated standardized testing has lately become a monster to be feared by students from the beginning of their school career. According to well respected educational author Alfie Kohn, “[…] Most of today’s discourse about education has been reduced to a crude series of monosyllables: Test scores are too low. Make them go up” (Kohn 1). Why all the testing? Some is to meet the federal government requirements, some to meet state requirements, some for the district and some for the school, and still more tests are given simply to help students prepare for the ones already mentioned. So much testing has reduced time for instructors to actually teach. In addition, many of the tests neglect to cover all important material,

Many people in the United States are concerned with the role that standardized testing has on education. Most of them have very strong views on this subject and as it usually happens with large-scale issues these views are very diverse and often opposite. Some claim that standardized testing is the best way to determine student’s skills and qualities because they are equally designed for everyone and not biased. Others, on the other hand, argue the fairness of these tests. They believe that test scores do not represent student’s knowledge. What is certain, in my opinion, is that this subject needs more attention followed by actions that will actually make difference in the education system.

Summary In One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards, the author Susan Ohanian closely studies the establishments and effects of standards-based classrooms in the U.S. Each year educators experience the joys and frustrations of using standards and standardized assessments as the primary means of monitoring student achievement. Many educators believe classroom standards are beautiful, but should it be the driving force of the school? Susan Ohanian provides readers with a personal perspective on the major impact educator officials have placed on teacher and students with the use of standards.

Higher education can help people improve their social class and income. As the core reading The Lesson by Toni Bambara, Miss Moore showed the poor young girl a new world that higher education could offer. People like the young girl in the story want to get into good education facilities for a better life. Standardized tests are the stepping-stones to universities. Standardized tests score are often used to evaluate students’ performance.

“No issue in the U.S. Education is more controversial than (standardized) testing. Some people view it as the linchpin of serious reform and improvement, others as a menace to quality teaching and learning” (Phelps). A tool that educators use to learn about students and their learning capabilities is the standardized test. Standardized tests are designed to give a common measure of a student’s performance. Popular tests include the SAT, IQ tests, Regents Exams, and the ACT. “Three kinds of standardized tests are used frequently in schools: achievement, diagnostic, and aptitude” (Woolfolk 550). Achievement tests can be used to help a teacher assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses in a

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Standardized testing does not truly evaluate a student’s knowledge. “High schools are turning into ‘giant test-prep centers’, effectively closing off intellectual inquiry and undermining enthusiasm of learning (and teaching)” (Wallace 4). Students are now being taught in such a fashion that all

Standardized testing is a form of test that’s commonly used in today’s world, especially in here the United States. These tests check what your teacher taught students over the years they are in school, and the tests used constantly to assess our schools here in the United States. Aside from being used to evaluate the schools, colleges check the scores students receive to see if they would be willing to accept them. With how important these standardized tests have become, most states now require students to take them. The states have become dictatorial in determining what needs to be learned and what can be pushed over to the side to ensure that schools meet the benchmarks the states have made. These tests affect schools and education negatively and they completely eradicate the meaning of teaching.

The educational system in the United States has gone through many changes over the last century. These changes are a part of a constant movement toward educational excellence for every child in this nation. One of the most recent acts placed on public school systems by the government is to create more accountability for schools in order to ensure that all children are receiving the proper education. Part of this mandate is that public schools will require students to take tests in order to gather information about their academic achievement. Although educators and administrators claim that the mandatory ability testing programs being initiated in America’s public schools will hold students and teachers accountable for academic

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

This book provides an overview of high stakes accountability and standardizations happening in American schools. Specifically, Bower and Thomas critique the system of grading and testing through the voices of many different authors. It presents these as problems affecting the education and meaningful learning of students. The book is written as a collection of essays that look at the failure of testing and grading. The history of the historical failures of testing and grading are also explored early on in the book. For example, in the introduction Kohn argues that grades and tests predict the future of grades and tests and nothing else. Kohn states, “it doesn’t tell us much at all about their future creativity, curiosity, happiness,