One Size Fit Few Analysis

Jonathan Kozol, in the chapter entitled “Other People’s Children, discusses and justifies the kinds of limitations placed on children who must attend poorly funded, educationally inferior school. Kozol argues that children in the inner-city schools are not fit to go to college and that they should be trained in schools for the jobs they will eventually hold, even though these jobs are less prestigious, lowest-level jobs in society. Kozol’s argument is based on the fact that students from the inner-city or rather from the societies that do not have enough job opportunities are not supposed to learn much because their society cannot accommodate most of the courses that are often found in the urban settings. For example, there is a point where Kozol cites one of the businessman’s statement which says, ‘It doesn’t make sense to offer something that most of these urban kids will never use.’ The businessman continues to argue, ‘no one expects these ghetto kids to go to college. Most of them are lucky if they are literate. If we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the most that they can hope for’ (Kozol 376). This statement clearly indicate that the society should accept the inequalities and exercise the same inequalities even in education.

Education is provided to people who come from all economic backgrounds. However, not everyone is able to use the education system to the best of their abilities. For example, children who live in poor situations might not be able to focus only on their studies such as taking up a job to help support their families. Moreover, it’s a fact that the areas that have a higher income generally often have a better schooling system. This might be arising from donations from local families and from a better economic structure in the area. A higher social class has advantages to access to resources such as tutors, private lessons, private schools and higher quality public schools. On the other hand, children in lower socioeconomic classes might live in impoverished, stressful environments with fewer resources.

The use of standardized examinations have long been debated in American society. In fact, the last several years have seen an immense shift from the prioritization of standardized testing to more holistic measurements of student achievement. Despite this shift, many school districts across the nation and college/university entrance requirements still place a significant, if not pivotal, emphasis on test-taking and standardized exam results. Throughout this paper, I will explore 1) the history of standardized testing, 2) arguments for and against its practice, as well as 3) situate the consequences of its use in one of the three philosophical goals of schooling. All of this will subsequently paint an investigation into the purpose of schooling in American society.

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Are educational standards and methods of accountability a bad idea? Most government officials, educators, and parents would agree that we need a standard to educate the present generations for the global world in which they will live. Across the United States each individual state has its own method of achieving their vision of what educational success looks like for their unique student population. Presently educators in the state of Alaska find themselves in a vortex of controversy as they try to implement teaching strategies and demonstrate student proficiency set by the Alaska State Board of Education and Early Developments new adoption of K-12 Alaska Standards. Educators face the challenge of meeting these standards which were set forth

“Mostly, they worry that common standards would reduce teaching to only a small range of testable information and would not produce the knowledge, flexibility and creativity needed. Buttressing this concern, the Center on Education Policy found that the emphasis on test-based accountability has indeed already narrowed the curriculum” (Mathis). Standardized testing has become a controversial topic recently throughout the nation because of the harsh, confined lessons teachers are being forced to give. According to a news article written by the New York Times, teenagers nationwide are taking anti-depressants to cope with test-related stress and teachers would rather retire than teach when the government seems to value testing over learning. Teachers

“The case against standardized testing: raising the scores, ruining the school.” Teacher Renewal. (N.p.), 2000. Web. 2 May 2017.

Standardized testing is used throughout schools in America to measure a student’s ability to understand the material and take a test. Consequently, these tests are being used to determine a student’s future by allowing a student to pass a grade or graduate. Various amounts of students have had to retake courses or grades because of the way they scored on a standardized test. Students feel a tremendous amount of pressure to perform well on these tests. The drawbacks of standardized testing include an administrator teaching the curriculum based on the test, and the lack of reflection of education.

When I was in grade school there was a large push for us students to excel in standardize testing. In recent years I have been more and more aware that these tests are not so much about us as students. What it is about is the school proving that their little education community is superior to others in a fight for funding. That’s not to say that the public school system is poor, or that I feel I have been done a disservice by attending public school. I loved my high school, I am just simply concerned with how much conformity was encouraged in that community. I remember, vividly, being told by one of my English teachers that my opinion was wrong because it did not match the opinions expressed in the text book. This was one of the most extreme

The biggest debate in education right now is whether or not standardized testing is beneficial or harmful to the educational needs of students. Teachers today feel that standardized testing has become excessive and is impeding the learning process of today’s students. However, legislators feel that standardized testing is imperative to the assessment of the achievement gap. Research suggests that excessive standardized testing is negatively impacting schools because of its emphasis on accountability and not on learning achievement, the ramifications it’s having on teachers, and the added stress and pressure it has placed on students.

Standardized tests have been a piece of education dating back to the 1800’s. Letdowns in education have been blamed on teacher quality, rising levels of poverty, tenure policies, and more so the widespread use of standardized testing. Many different typed of standardized tests are being used, but the ones that have triggered the most controversy are the high-stakes assessments. While past generations of students in America have had to go through tests, the tests were not given so frequently and they did not play such a obvious role in education. Exams used to be given mostly to determine where students would be placed or what kind of assistance they needed, but lately scores have been published in the papers and used as the main standards for judging teachers, children, and schools. Through my research I have found that there are just as many people for standardized tests as are against.

Since the early 2000 and the No Child Left Behind Act, the introduction of the standards-based education in the public school system came to light, and recently the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has brought on another challenge along with controversies. Some critics view it as the “same old wine in a new bottle” (McTighe and Wiggins, 2012, p. 1) but it does provide some merits and require a positive new approach instead of the old habit of “zeroing in on the grade-level standards before a careful examination of the goals and structure of the overall documents” (p. 1). Another concern is the role of the Standards. “Standards are not curriculum. A Standard is an outcome, not a claim about how to achieve an outcome” (McTighe & Wiggins,

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 new regulations seem to be highly demanding, but Judy Steiner is a strong proponent for standardization. In her article “Implications of a standards-based curriculum for the teaching-learning-assessment process,” she discusses the importance of national standards and the advantages of setting standards. According to Steiner, “The setting of national standards allows for equal pupil opportunity. First, all pupils are judged by the same standards...Second, national standards clarify what pupils should know at different levels of their education” (9). She also notes that when individual teachers or schools set their own standards, there is a lack of consistency. Standards and assessment provide a way for measuring progress and can also influence early intervention if students are having problems. The purpose of the standards is to set higher expectations for both students and teachers. “Standards in and of themselves are meaningless,” Steiner says. “What is important are the steps that educators and others take to help pupils read them” (12). Standards can only work if schools and teachers find a good way to implement them, using appropriate materials and activities. Though teachers are told what to teach, it is still up to them to choose how to teach it. They are given a roadmap, but they still have a big role in developing curriculum material (Steiner 10). In this type of curriculum, assessment is viewed as a final product and a continual process to exemplify where

Currently, instructors are pressured by state education department to adjust school curricula to meet the expectations of the standardized test. Educators alter the curriculum to “match the [standardized] test” (“How Standardized”). Therefore, instructors are limited and classroom instruction is focused around test preparation for the annual standardized test. Teachers are forced to abandon their creative lessons and “teach the test,” or concentrating only on the material that will be evaluated (“How Standardized”). This frequently involves taking multiple choice tests that are formatted identically to the standardized test and only memorizing facts, formulas, and items included only on the standardized tests (“How Standardized”). Even though test scores may improve, students are not learning how to think critically and perform better in other subjects that are not on the test (“How Standardized”). Instructional time is limited in the other subject areas such as science, social studies, music, and art. Instructors feel “handicapped” and plead to state officials abandon these standardized tests for the sake of the “quality of the instruction in American schools” (Zimmerman 206). School curricula are being modified only to prepare students for a single test, not for education the students need in the future.