Who gets to decide what it means to be well educated?
Does the phrase well educated refer to the quality of schooling you received or to something about you? Who gets to decide what it means? Is it a standardized test? Is it our test scores or memorization of facts? How much or how well we can remember at a given point in time? How much knowledge we ought to have? What could it possibly be? I think this society has given “Well Educated" a poor definition. Sitting in a class for a long time does not make us educated. Test scores does not make us educated neither does reading faster than others or solving mathematical calculations. Not everyone has to same knowledge of a certain thing, so why judge us on the same criteria. Does it denote what we were taught? If the term refers to what we know or what we can do then we could be poorly educated despite receiving a top-notch education, and if it is, then the numerous people constantly going to get an education in big name schools are unintelligent. In addition, if it refers to the quality of schooling, then many well-educated people sat through lesson that was too irrelevant for them to remember a few years later.
Why do we go to school? The first eighteen years of life, going to school is not always by choice but compulsory. We are told that if we want to make our lives better we have to go to school. We go to school because the law tells us to; it indirectly states that to be more than average and earn a good paycheck, we have
The wide-spread use of standardized testing in the American education system is not helping anybody. Standardized testing was designed to help schools see how their students were performing academically in standard way. The NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act made standardized testing tied to school funding. It made the government reward or punish schools based on test scores. It was made to help students stay on track. Instead, standardized testing is lowering the quality of education in the United States. Standardized testing puts stress on students, forces schools and teachers to “teach to the test”, and has not helped the United States in worldwide education rankings.
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?
What does it mean to be well-educated? Is a well-educated person someone who went to a good school? Does it apply to someone who got straight A’s is school and did well on standardized tests? Does it mean that they are smart or just good at memorizing their material and requirements for tests? If they are good at passing test by memorizing all the material but then forget it as soon as the test is done then what good was taking a test in the first place? Is a well-educated person the same thing as a smart person? If a person went to an adequate school and receives a good education then it would be concluded that they are well-educated but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are smart. It might just mean
What does it mean to be well educated? To be well educated it is a balance between academics and practical knowledge. Throughout this paper I will show that one does not necessarily need a college degree to be deemed as well educated. I will explore both aspects of academics and practical knowledge and how it affects individuals.
Being completely honest I do not know much about standardized test. I remember having to take them
Imagine a sunny day where students should be playing outside but yet they are stuck in a boring classroom filling in bubble after bubble. Do you think students should have to take standardized tests? Students should not have to take standardized tests. They take up too much class time, it stresses kids out, and it costs the government too much money. This should be recognized by somebody.
Feeling like school has no purpose is normal. Students wake up at the break of dawn just to catch the bus , and stay up to the late hours of the night studying for the big test the next day.All for the ultimate goal,college. That recurring question still floats around ; Is college necessary? Laborious jobs such as : working in an auto shop, plumbers , construction workers , even being a fry cook, only requires a high-school education. Employers administer a test to see if the future employee can : read, write, spell, count, and do basic math. All things students learn from elementary school to high school.
Standardized testing usage in the United States has increased since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2002. The purpose of these exams is to assess the skills and knowledge a student should be receiving from school. These tests occur annually, and often have high stakes for the students being tested. However, despite all the testing, the United States is ranked 20th globally in terms of its education system. On the other hand, Finland has been 1st since the year 2000, and their use of standardized testing is practically nonexistent. Do tests accurately assess a student’s performance? Studies show that testing does not properly measure the value of the education a student receives, and often tests discriminate against students who are
For over 100 years, high school students from all across the United States have been experiencing standardized testing of all kinds. College Board has been the organization that conducted and designed these tests. According to a PBS article, the first College Board’s college entrance examinations were held the week of June 17, 1901 at 69 different locations; the test consisted of materials from these subjects: English, French, German, Latin, Greek, History, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics. Throughout the years, the formality of the test has been changed many times: in 1926, 1936, the 1960s, 1994, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2012 and the latest was this year, 2016. According to a recent report by College Board, over 1.69 million highs school
In the article by A. Kohn What does it mean to be well educated? (2003). Kohn begins with talking about his incredibly intelligent wife who is a physician, but when is comes to grammar and punctuation she fails miserably. He asked the question “What does it mean to be well educated?” (Kohn, 2003) Is it to be able to take a test well? Or be able to show what you know in a hands on way that makes you well educated. He then digresses into the Common Core State Standards that have been adopted by almost every state, and he asks if this is the right approach to judge being well educated. In the conclusion, of his article he states that learning needs to be desired by the individual and the means to do so. In my
GED, SAT, ACT, and more test are standardize tests. Students need to take this test in order to graduate from high school or college. In American society, standardize tests are test that schools use to measure students’ academic achievement, or to show whether students are ready to progress to the next stage of their educations. While the test is designed to measure student’s ability, many people are concerned about the use of the tests. Standardize test can measure students’ knowledge, but it is not meant to be testing students’ creativity and other skills. I believe that the schools should not over use the standardize tests because standardize tests can only measure small part of education. Also, the test does not value diversity and is unreliable
In recent years Florida’s standardized testing program has taken a turn for the worst. After doing away with the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) the debate has only grown due to flood of new tests being created such as the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) or End of Course Exam (EOC). These tests are administered to test students’ abilities at the end of the school year. In spring of 2015, with only two months of testing between the EOC’s and the FSA, Florida’s legislature implemented the FSA. The main reason the testing was delayed was because the new tests had to be administered on a computer, so that scores could be calculated faster. Though most of the recent issues make it seem that testing is useless, there are still positives. Administering these tests allows the state to measure the level of improvement in the education students are receiving and it keeps the teachers adhering to the curriculum plan. The positive and negative points about testing bring up the question: Should standardized testing in Florida be eliminated or changed?
Standardized tests are annoying little things that students in schools all across the nation have to take every year. Though, if all the facts are taken into consideration, they do not really seem worth it, do they? Many people speculate whether or not they are actually measuring a student’s intelligence or anything like that. It seems that students do not necessarily have to learn the material, only memorize it for a short period of time. The question has to be raised, though-- what exactly qualifies a test to be a standardized test? Well, as described by The Glossary of Education Reform, there are two main things that make a test standardized. The first being that the test “...requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or
There are several reasons why kids need to go to school but to me, the top three reasons are getting an education helps you go farther in life, it’s required by the state that you go till you reach a certain age, and it will help you learn social skills and help you be comfortable to talking to people. Although students may not like going to school, it benefits them in the long run. It is important for students to go to school to get an education. Even though some students may not like to go to school it is required that they go. Even though students may not realize it but they also learn social skills by making friends and talking in front of people.
There are numerous causes that make adolescents start to go to class. In some cases their guardians power them, an alternate times they need to keep away from the obligation of having work, and a few others just to abstain from having obligations at home. Every understudy has an alternate objective, as per the arrangements of their life, yet, why do I go to class? What are my arrangements? My objectives? The reasons for having the chance to help in school have completely changed my way of life. To get a higherer instruction, to accomplish a sensible employment and to make my guardians pleased with me, are a percentage of the reasons for why I am right now going to school.