Essay No More Testing: Instead Teach Innovation to Our Students

Have you ever wondered if other countries get the same amount of education as you? In Finland they have many differences in schooling than the USA. Finland has many colleges and universities as well as the USA. Even though Finland and the USA spend different amounts on students they both still get good education.

Standardized testing does not occur at the college level where someone might assume that it would be mandated. When someone is taking a test to enter a college, wouldn’t it be logical for a

The United States is considered to be one of the biggest powerhouses in the world, but when it comes to education in the U.S, we’re consider to be average. How is it that other nations who aren't as powerful as the U.S, be ahead us in education? Examples of these nations are South Korea, Finland, and Poland. Amanda Ripley sought to find an answer to this question.

Finland and america both have good education but both don’t spend the same proportion of the money on the schools because Finland spends 7% of the money on it but America only spends about 6% of the money on

Our nation is LAGGING in academics compared to other nations, such as South Korea, Finland, and Japan. According to Emmeline Zhao (2012), the students of the United States scored lower on academic tests compared to other countries. However, the United States is not the worst performing nation. Its academic growth is lacking (Zhao, 2012).

30 years ago, America was the leader in quantity and quality of high school diplomas. Today, our nation is ranked 36th in the world. In the US in 2010, 74% of students in American high schools graduated and received their high school diplomas. If the other 16% or 1.3 million students had graduated that year, the nation would have seen $337 billion more in earnings throughout those students’ lifetimes. The problem is not only those 16%, but also the education of much of the graduating 74%. The problem is High schools are not preparing students with the skills and knowledge necessary to excel after graduation. Some of the failures that accompany US education are the fact that: only 1 in 4 high school students graduate college-ready in the 4 core subjects of English, Reading, Math and Science. Since 1983, over 10 million Americans have reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level. Over 20 million have reached their senior year unable to do basic math. Almost 25 million have reached 12th grade not knowing the essentials of U.S. history. American 12th graders also rank 19th out of 21 industrialized countries in mathematics achievement and 16th out of 21 nations in science. Our advanced physics students rank dead last. The low ability that is represented by American high school students is many times because of the quality of the teachers who are educating these students. In the U.S., 14% of new

Lastly, the reason(s) why we should not have standardized testing. Standardized testing evaluates a student’s performance on one

As found during a recent study conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools, the average American student takes one hundred and twelve mandated standardized tests before graduating high school (Layton). Standardized testing has become an increasingly popular method of assessing students at ages as young as six in order to evaluate schools and teachers. However, it has also become a means to control curriculum rather than determine which students need extra assistance and inform the designation of funding, as it was originally intended.

I searched about which country has the best education system in the world. There are different results for ten top countries where have the best education system. In some of their ranking there is America name and in some of them is not, but in some of them there is one name, Finland. For example, according to Which Country Comes Top for Skills and Education by Tim Leopold and Tamara Leonardi on AGENDA website, Finland is the best country in world with the all elements that the best education system needs to have. When I read this page, I wanted to study more about Finnish education system. There is some interesting information that show Finland government spends more money on education instead of its military. For example, according to Finland Ministry of Defense website that this country spends 2658.8 million Euros which is just 1.29 percent of the Finland GDP. On the other hand, according to Center on International Education Benchmarking website Finish government spent 6.1 percent of Finland GDP in 2011 that is over three times of defense budget. Thus, these information clarify the reason of having the best rank of the education in the world by Finland. They understood the only way to improve their country is improve their knowledge. However, these amounts are not my reason to compare America with Finland, but my goal is to say a country can be successful by pay on education than

Nevertheless, the situation can be changed if the whole school system revises the curriculums for the sake of students’ better development, which is the original intention of education. After that, tests should be based on the curriculums that schools are providing. How is it possible for students to achieve good grades while the test does not at all correspond to the courses they are taking? Although many people believe that the freedom of teaching and the freedom of learning are both significant, experts claim that a well-educated person has a well-furnished mind, “shaped by reading and thinking about history, science, literature, the arts, and politics”, and is armed with knowledge and skills that help him read, listen and also explain (Ravitch 16). Without basic knowledge and skills, people are unable to think critically, to debate or to question, let alone able to solve problems in tests or in their real lives. The continuous education reforms really expose the effort that America is always trying to make for its nation. Nonetheless, paying too much attention to testing other than curriculum will only lead to a blow up of its previous efforts.

Standardized Testing evaluates student performance in one single day and does not consider other factors in the student’s life. There are

Ideally teachers should first look at how the objectives correspond to the larger goals and aims and then identify the skills required to achieve the objectives (Noddings, Aims, Goals and Objectives, 2007).

There in Finland, the odds of becoming a teacher are one in ten. They only pick the top ten percent of the graduates, and they are compared to doctors and lawyers. But the pay is only about thirty-six thousand year. But in the United States teachers are compared to nurses and dentist and jobs like that. Also in the U.S, the teachers are paid an average of forty-five thousand a year. The odds of becoming a teacher, however, are a lot easier than in Finland. But in both Finland and most of the time in the U.S, they do not use merit pay.

The best but the hardest path to reforming the public sector is through education (The Economist Magazine 2011). America has a lot to learn from the results and implications of the 2000 survey and list of countries with the most improved education systems by the Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA. The performance of academic students at age 15 in reading, math and science was surveyed in 32 countries. According to the 2009 results, the top 5 performers in reading were Shanghai, China; South Korea; Finland; Hong Kong, China; and Singapore. In reading, the top-ranking were Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Finland as the 6th. And in science, the leaders were Shanghai, Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. The US was among the lowest-ranking in science as the 23rd in ranking (The Economist Magazine).

* Overall lacking behind in higher education and training compared to other advanced economies (ranked 28th according to WEF, 2012)