High Stakes Testing Research Paper

Public education in America began in the early to mid-19th century with the simple goal of “uniting the American population by instilling common moral and political values” (Spring, 2012, p. 5). Our country was founded by men who designed the constitution so that it could be amended to accommodate changing political and social climates. They believed in the ideology of the American dream which “holds out a vision of both individual success and the collective good of all” (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2004, p. 1). It is with this same ideology that our public schools were

Over the centuries, education has changed based on the demands of the citizens during a specific time. As Americans become more informed (educated), their opinions, ideas, and thinking change. America’s expectations concerning public education have evolved as well. The demands that are placed on states, districts, and leadership are becoming more intense; yet, our culture still believes that public education is faltering.

The author's main point in this article was focusing on the problems of standardized testing in the school system. Ronald Roach states how in the past decade since the no child left behind program was established that there was no sufficient gains in the overall student math and reading scores. The author then goes on to explain how the Obama administration has been criticized over the issues of no child left behind program and how they are not effectively improving the program.

NCLB, the most recent version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was preceded by the Improving America’s Schools Act. Under that law, high-quality teaching and learning were not prevalent in all schools, and achievement gaps persisted, leading to agreement that a greater federal role for accountability was necessary—from which NCLB was born. NCLB authorized 45 programs in 10 different areas, but public debate tended to focus on the law’s testing, accountability, and teacher-quality requirements. NCLB required that students be tested in the subjects of English language arts (ELA) and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, and for states to use the results to assess how well schools were meeting “adequate yearly progress” goals for student proficiency in these subjects. Schools that consistently did not meet these goals overall, or for subgroups of students, were targeted for interventions, and eventually for sanctions.

Every year, millions of students take long standardized tests, but do they improve the education of American students? In 2000, the US ranked 18th in mathematics worldwide. By 2012, the US dropped to 27th, with similar results in the remaining subjects. After passing the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001, the lives of thousands were academically changed. NCLB’s Mission Statement reads: “Our mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.” Standardized testing is declining the education in America by placing financial burdens on schools, as well as reprioritizing school choices, unnecessary

This author discusses the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB) and it mandates that every student in K-12 public schools will reach basic proficiency in math and reading by 2014. The goals of the accountability component of NCLB place emphasis on closing the achievement gap for all public school students, regardless of their socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or disabilities. The Federal Government mandates annual testing of all students in grades three through eight on challenging state standards for mathematics and reading (Beisser 2014). The author noted that the federal mandate didn’t intend on leaving any students behind, but after the law was passed it became evident that the United States has provided more, time, attention, resources and policies in the direction of students who scored below achievement level in reading and mathematics.

According to the Nation’s Report Card, only forty percent of 4th graders and thirty-three percent of 8th graders are performing at or above levels of proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test in 2015. These numbers are unchanged from 2013, showing that no progress is being made. The United States education system needs to drastically be reformed so that our test scores and work output is comparable to that of higher-achieving nations such as China and Japan. One policy currently in place that is making it difficult for teachers to teach the way they would like is the No Child Left behind Act. The act was originally made so that schools are held accountable for their students’ progress, parents get more choices of which school their children will attend and so that there is more flexibility for how funds can be distributed by the schools. The No Child Left Behind Act needs to be reformed because it encourages teachers to teach to the tests, gives money to schools already succeeding, and forces teachers to focus mainly on students struggling rather than average or excelling students.

More than a decade after President George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act in efforts to improve the United States’s performance in education, the nation is still only ranked 27th in math and 17th in reading internationally. Amazingly average. The question is, how can the United States improve its ranking? The federal government turned to standardized testing to assess students, as NCLB mandated annual standardized testing for all students in grades three through eight. However, overwhelming evidence and arguments clearly show that standardized testing does not improve education in the United States.

"At best, any test can measure students' knowledge of only a subset of the content in a particular subject area; it is also generally more difficult to design test items at higher levels of cognitive complexity." (Do High-Stakes Tests Improve Learning?). This article makes the valid point that high stakes testing only tests lower level thinking skills and ignores student's complex and higher level thinking. "The current tests don't measure

Traditionally, educators have been held to some degree of expectation regarding student learning and increasing student aptitude; however, public expectations increased to a new level as a result of the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB] (2002). NCLB was passed to ensure educational equity and increased academic achievement for all students. The legislation charged school district leaders with holding schools accountable for alignment with national and/or state standards that often mandated significant gains in student academic achievement, particularly for low-performing student populations, and that is measured by student performance on high-stakes tests. The test results created the data analyzed to design

First, within the context of the video discussions, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) represents a top-heavy approach to education with the federal government mandating reform and placing emphasis on testing outcomes. Indeed, NCLB is part of the accountability movement that has led to the development of ongoing measures that are designed to create statewide assessment systems to measure student performance in mathematics and reading and thus address areas for improvement among students not performing at passable levels in such subject areas (Ravitch, 2014). This framework has extended into the Obama administration (i.e., Race to the Top – RTTT), with an even greater importance attached to outcomes, where high-stakes testing remains the basis by which student success is defined (Ravitch, 2014). Second, measuring student progress has historically been a prevalent feature of the American public education system with respect to policy and practice. However, the underlying assumption of present accountability systems is that attaching consequences to education reform will elevate student achievement (Hursh, 2010). Using high-stakes assessments to retain/promote students and to withhold a student’s graduation diploma for not passing an exit-level examination are examples of how the current NCLB/RTTT accountability framework supposedly ensures that high school

Although high-stakes testing has been around for hundreds of years, we still use forms of this kind of testing in classrooms to this day. High-stakes testing is a very debated topic within the education field. Every few years at the state and federal level someone claims they have come up with a so-called new and improved way to perform standardized testing within schools, and the majority of the time the new ideas to improve high-stakes testing is created by politicians who do not have the first clue in what methods will help children learn more efficiently. I for one do not believe high-stakes testing truly measures the intelligence of a child.

Many stakeholders’ in public education are seeking solutions to produce high achieving students who graduate ready to embrace technological challenges. One solution for many stakeholders’ seems to be high stakes testing. High stakes testing is an educational reform where decisions are based on individual student performance, teacher performance, and school performance. The tests are usually performed as an end of course or end of grade assessment after completion of the curriculum. The No Child Left Behind Act or NCLB signed by President Bush in 2001 was mandated to improve student performances and remove inequalities among diverse student populations. This Act required states to design and develop programs that employed test- based

There are many studies that show that high stakes testing can affect how students learn how they see their schoolwork as less about learning and more for grades and practice for the tests and finals. The reason I think this is happening is because teachers, parents, and schools have such a hard focus on getting good scores on their tests because it is sort of like a trophy or accomplishment for the schools,teachers,or parents if their students or children have good test scores. Schools often have to show the county school board they are having a higher success rate than other schools so that they will receive more funding than the other schools; this is shown in the cheating scandal in Atlanta a few years back. Good exam scores are seen as

The No Child Left Behind Act should tremendously be re-examined and amended because the focus on the standardized tests decrease the quality of other subjects not on the tests, the tests are not an efficient tool to make certain that a student is receiving an excellent education and the tests create unnecessary stress for the students, teachers and administrators. The purpose of No Child Left Behind is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a top-grade education. This is a great proposal to strive towards but, legislation plans on achieving this proposal by making schools responsible for their students’ proficiency and to measure their proficiency with the use of standardized tests. After the students take the