Informative Essay: The Use Of Standardized Testing In Schools

Standardized tests are unnecessary because they are excruciating to the minds of many innocent students. Each year, the tests get tougher and stricter until the students cannot process their own thoughts. The tests become torturous to the minds of those only starting in the world of tests. The students already battling in the war are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the world of uncreativity and narrowness. As the walls narrow in on them, they are lost and unable to become innovative thinkers. Moreover, the implementation of standardized tests into the public school systems of the United States of America has controversially raised two different views –the proponents versus the opponents in the battle of the effectiveness of

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.

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

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,

Students are overwhelmed with school, work, extra-curricular activities, family, etc. Perhaps standardized tests are a major contributor to students’ stress. A standardized test is any test scored in a consistent manner and requires test-takers to answer identical questions. Among the most common include the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT). According to the article “Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools” from Opposing Viewpoints in Context, the beginnings of standardized tests occurred during World War I when the American Psychological Association developed a “ground-administered test” to eliminate inefficient recruits (Solley 3). Today, standardized tests are necessary for college admission. Just last month, in March of 2016, College Board, the non-profit organization responsible for administering the SAT, altered the format of the test. It is now formatted more similar to the ACT and includes an optional essay reducing the score from 2400 to 1600. Many advocates argue standardized tests accurately measure academic intelligence and hold teachers and schools accountable. In today’s society, standardized tests have become the norm, and unfortunately, people overlook their negative effects despite research substantiating arguments about their disadvantages. Standardized tests are disadvantageous because they hinder education and contain bias.

”Between pre-K and 12th grade, students take about 112 mandatory standardized exams" (washingtonpost). There are numerous negative effects following this shocking statistic that cause a stir with schools all over. For the majority of students, standardized testing is burdensome and loathed. Scores give an inaccurate representation of students' abilities and the system is often corrupt. They pose as a type of analysis that is designed to administer and record information in a consistent method. However, as years have passed, these commercially prepared tests have destroyed the idea of school being a safe learning environment. The stress of the test have also been found to push trusted educators to neglect the goal of maximizing each student to their full potential. Not only are millions spent on

Standardized tests are one of major steps that helps students get admitted to college. For more than 50 years in the United States, standardized testing has been a “scourge to student life” and pressured students to do their best. Questions that are designed for standardized tests are based on finding an individual’s aptitude to determine how they can solve problems in the real world. With lurking opinions of whether standardized testing should continue to be enforced or abolished, standardized testing has made an impact to students around the country by setting an educational background.

The clock ticks on, and the school day drags slowly. As the pencil hovers over the four answers, the student sighs heavily in distress. This is how many students feel while taking standardized tests. Standardized exams have been a major part of the American education since the mid-1800s. The use of the tests shot up after President George W. Bush signed a bill known as the “No Child Left Behind Act” on January 8, 2002. The act required all fifty states to have their students take the tests. Although, the purpose of the exams was to measure a student’s and their school’s academic improvement, but this idea is incredibly flawed. Many times the tests graded unwell and many people believe that the exams are a waste, which is just a few of the many reasons that students opt out each year. However, eliminating standardized tests from a student’s educational school year is necessary because the tests cause great stress, they are unfair and the tests

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

Standardized testing has been brought about to public school districts all across the United States with the best intentions. School districts base the success of each student’s performance the rest of the student within their states. The truth is, that these standardized tests may actually be importing restricted among it today’s young minds from becoming independent and innovative critical thinkers. The United States should disregard standardized testing and base success off of student performance in the classroom, for instance. Pupils begin to lose sight of the long lasting goal they should be striving to achieve, which is gain the knowledge necessary to make it through future endeavors. Instead, students begin to focus on the long term

A single test is not a valid way to test a student on what they know and understand about an entire semester of information. Standardized Tests do not show what a student actually knows, it shows how good of a memory they have from the five hours of cramming the night before. Students shouldn’t have to spend hours on end every night studying for a test that won’t even show their true abilities or knowledge. These tests should at least be open book, we should be testing a student's ability to apply the knowledge, not to memorize it. We should be marking students on their creative abilities, not on how well they can follow a format. Students should be taught to let their creative skills show and should be taught how to do that. They should be able to write about what they want and care about. You most likely won’t get any passion or creativity from a student who is being forced to write about a topic they don’t even care about. Everybody thinks and sees things

Standardized tests take away the creativity from the teachers forcing them to "teach to the test" this means memorizing

A very current and ongoing important issue happening within the education system is standardized testing. A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a calculated, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students might perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT’s and the ACT’s. The SAT and the ACT attempt to estimate how well high school students will perform in college. But standardized test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use: California Achievement Tests,

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.

To begin with standardized testing creates several critical problems for students and for the education industry. These tests are created to test over particular things. In the end these types of tests are only limited in the amount of knowledge that can be tested toward students. For example, “Standardized exams offer few opportunities to display the attributes of high-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity.” (“Standardized Testing Has Serious Limitations”). Even though these tests are able to attack certain subjects at the core, they still leave out very valuable and critical information that all students should know. In