Essay on How Standardized Testing Effects the Education

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

Most standardized test do not measure emotional or mechanical intelligence, actually a lot of educators argue that standardized test do not measure comprehension or actual intelligence but rather memorization. While others may believe that standardized testing just needs a few improvements, others believe that it is impossible to have a test that measures accurately the capability of a diverse student population. Today’s schooling depends heavily on the test scores from standardized test. Standardized testing should not have so much weight put on them because they have a negative impact on effective education, students’ self-concept, and learning styles.

begun their education and the tests that are sure to come with it. The road

Additionally, Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” There are different forms of intelligence that go beyond what our school system measures. Students are not a unit to be measured, and students cannot be assigned a numerical value to identify their intelligence. Students are diverse—they learn at different speeds, and they learn in different ways. Focusing solely on test scores is hurting our students and deviating away from building our society on success and excellence. Critics are slowly realizing the problems associated with standardized tests—they create anxiety, they are extremely biased, and they do not measure the ability to think deeply.

Similarly, many teachers, statewide, feel that these exams that no significant value towards a student’s overall intelligence. According to a survey by both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic, of more than ten-thousand public school teachers, this report has found that teachers

After the implementation of the “No Child Left Behind Act” high risk standardized testing has become a pressure cooker of corruption in the United States due to often unrealistic expectations, abundant incentives, and harsh punishments placed upon educators and administrators, overall resulting in the essential need for reform. The concept that every student’s academic ability can be assessed by a single universal exam is a misguided notion.

The purposes of standardized tests are to instruct decision making, establish program eligibility, evaluate course goals, evaluate program goals, and examine external curriculum. When a teacher gives and assesses a standardized test, they gain information about their students that helps them realize what concepts they have learned according to the agenda for the subject at hand. If the assessment is performed in a sensible amount of time and given according to the directions, this purpose should be fulfilled; however, it is a common belief that standardized tests do not work well in establishing where a student stands in a specific curriculum. The test uses a general curriculum that is the basis for the tests

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,

In classrooms all across America, students sit perched over their desks in the process of taking standardized tests. As the students take the tests, teachers pace nervously up and down the rows of their classroom, hoping and praying that their students can recall the information which they have presented. Some children sit relaxed at their desks, calmly filling in the bubbles and answering essay questions. These children are well prepared and equipped to handle their tests. Other children, however, sit hunched over their desks, pondering over questions, trying to guess an answer. They struggle to recall information that has been covered many times in class, but they can’t.

One problem standardized testing imposes is that it cannot precisely measure a student’s amount of knowledge. With so many education systems and a number of teaching styles, there is no realistic way to cover the material every student has been learning. This leads to problems on the results of standardized tests. Swartz, of the National Center for Teaching Thinking said, “Most current U.S. standardized tests include only multiple-choice questions and provide no way for students to explain their thinking, So if a student answers (d) and that 's correct, it still raises the question, ‘Is he just guessing?’ And there 's no way to know,” (“Teaching Critical Thinking”). Standardized tests, especially multiple choice tests, are inefficient for measuring a student’s ability and knowledge. Clearly, multiple choice tests do not work. They cannot correctly determine how

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

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

A child turns five and gets ready to go to school for the first time. On that first day, the eager child walks through the classroom doors to find a colorful and invigorating room where interaction and creativity are encouraged. As the child grows, however, the rooms begin to become more structured and dull, with less focus on divergent thinking. This transition impedes children’s interest and excitement for learning and damages their potential. As the child reaches the adolescent stage and enters high school, it only gets worse. Many of his or her courses will have become almost entirely focused on helping students excel at tests rather than stimulating creative thinking and lasting knowledge. Students are struggling with this method of education. In fact,

Standardize test aren't as complicated at all. I think this because they are kind of easy to do and they are not hard well for some parts. I think i consider myself an in between a bad and good tester because it all depends on how much I study and how well I know the material. I have always been this way because I used to always have trouble trying to keep the material stuck in my head and also I have trouble learning complicated material. What I always do to do my best in the standardize test is I will always try to get more work and try to practice with a timer on so that way I will know how long it took me to solve a problem. What I do to prepare for a standardize test is I will always try my hardest to remember how to solve a problem and then if I don't get it right I will ask for help. another thing I do to prepare is I will eat a lot and keep my energy flowing and try not to get tired. What I like to do before the test is that I will try to get a lot of sleep so the next morning I am already feeling energized and ready to take on the test.

Sometimes, teaching to the test may not be as terrible as we think. Having standardized testing focus on essential content and skills that student’s need to master to be prosperous in society is what should be the basis of NCLB. (“Standardized Tests,” 2003). The exams should also provide good insight as to what subjects schools need to focus more forms of remediation on to improve the education standards of students (“Standardized Tests,” 2003). Standardized testing also helps schools that desperately need extra funding. When used for the RIGHT reasons, this extra funding gives tremendous advantage to the students in general; especially those who are economically disadvantaged.