Standardizing Education “Everyone is a Genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” -Albert Einstein. The modern school system is failing, and standardized tests are the biggest reason behind it. Not only does it ruin creativity and individuality, but a single test can determine a student's future. We should not be taking standardized tests seriously. Standardized tests have been around for over a century, and continue to stick around in the modern education system. However, as time passed on, students have found ways around these tests by all means, including cheating. The tests determine student’s future greatly, so they are absolutely terrified to receive a bad score. Most students around the world have seen it first hand; It’s not a rare occurrence. More so, these tests do not value creativity in students. They expect everyone to learn the same, to know the same information, and to be able to perform the exact same. Even so, these tests are graded completely by machines. These tests are practically turning students into robots, who are expected to learn the same as every other person. First, standardized tests only measure a very small amount of what actually makes education meaningful. According to Gerald W. Bracey, a late education researcher, these tests cannot accurately measure other important qualities of what make humans, humans. These qualities include individuality, creativity, passion, curiosity, and resourcefulness, to name a few. These qualities play no role in determining our future when it comes to education. Sure, you have a choice of what field of work you would like to go into, but in reality standardized tests ultimately limit your choices. The creator of standardized tests, the maker of the multiple choice tests you know today, Frederick J. Kelly, even said “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” This shows that even the man in charge of these tests, believes that they are too hard on the kids and should be gotten rid of. Next, standardized tests are not a reliable source of measuring students’ academic achievement. These tests have not shown any long term improvements in the
When a student has the ability to pursue classes that interest them, combined with teachers that enable the students to understand more and push themselves, the students will be more inclined to continue to go to school and find a topic that they are passionate about, that they would then hopefully be able to make a career out of. Students that are surrounded by negativity and a setting that distracts from the importance of learning and pressures the student is one that ultimately reduces the output of education that the politicians are so concerned with. Students can tell when they are being taught for a test. In NJ, all the way from the NJASK through PARCC testing through the SAT/ACT, it is obvious that there is an underlying issue in the education system. From 3rd Grade everything becomes a means to an end. What happens, though, if what a student is capable of and what they are good at is not on a test? Those students can be left behind or thought lesser of. Frustration sets in when a person becomes bored as well as when they are not properly understanding the material. Albert Einstein stated that “If you judge a fish based on how well it climbs a tree it will always feel stupid.” Standardized testing is good for creating a basis of knowledge and a starting point for the school system to make sure that each citizen can have a basic level of understanding, but there are many people that are not wired for standardized testing and traditional education. So many people have so many different skill sets, innate and developed. Those that can paint and have a vision like Picasso may not show this on their testing. This is the same as how those that are taking high level calculus and then the math section of the SAT. The questions are not the same. The thinking is meant to be misleading. This does not provide a fair
Why more standardized test won’t improve education. Having to focus more on passing a grade than the education learning is not going to help on improving education. “Test scores are used to bar students from moving one grade to another, to determine teacher and administrator pay, and to label schools as failing, a step that often leads to closure” (“Why” 1). Standardized tests seem
Standardized testing has been ruling over the lives of students, making or breaking them in their education without fair judgement. Tests like the SAT and the ACT count for way too much when applying to colleges, which in turn limits the student 's capabilities to thrive in an environment that would benefit them. There are many problems within a standardized test that deems them to be unreliable as a true test of knowledge. Although designed to test groups of students on intelligence, standardized testing neglects to fairly acknowledge the abilities of each unique student which reflect their true capabilities.
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.
You are sitting in the classroom and your teacher hands back your test you just recently had, suddenly you freeze up, you start thinking to yourself that you are not intelligent enough because you did not score so well. Standardized Testing has been around for about 50 years now, but recently they have become more pressure-packed and ubiquitous regarding teenagers. Standardized Testing such as the SATs, ACTs, EOGs, and EOCs do not measure the true intelligence of an individual it is indeed a waste of time and payment. Many can say that Standardized Test are never based upon anything they know and that it is rigged so that they cannot be successful. Standardized testing does not measure the true intelligence of students because the test do not have anything that will furthermore help students in the future, they are only subject based not personality or mentality based to where the students can actually show his or her true individuality, and also teens should not be defined by what they scored on a test.
Firstly, one very controversial topic in America: Standardized testing. There are two most common cons associated with standardized tests. Firstly, standardized tests are not essential. Secondly, hypothetically speaking if standardized testing were a resourceful scale to weigh a student’s appropriate academic level, the costs correlated with these tests is too pricey.
Standardized tests do not give an accurate measure of how smart students are, and in some cases, how not smart they are. A student with test anxiety could completely fail an important standardized test but could be the valedictorian of their class because they are so smart. The tests that seem important actually just stress teachers and students out instead of helping them. “The tests that are taken should not be portrayed to be as important as Advanced Placement tests.” “Not many people pass the AP tests, so they should not be expected to pass the standardized tests,” (Concordia University).
To draw you an illustration, look at China for example. They placed top over Finland in the 2009 PISA scores, but that is only because they are great at preparing their students for tests. The children are lacking education on a higher level. This is the “drill and kill” method which Chinese educators prove only “competent mediocrity”. Meaning that in the long hall, this has no absolute value at all. In addition, the tests they are forced to take now can only portray a small portion of what education really consists of. In the sight of an educational researcher, Gerald W. Bracey, PHD, a standardized test misses out on true qualities of a scholar consisting of “creativity, resilience, endurance, leadership, courage, integrity, honesty, etc.” However a quantity of people will replenish that about 93% of studies show a positive effect on the accomplishment of students who are needing to take tests, but I would object that standardized tests are inadequate and inaccurate when finding the knowledge of students long term with only getting temporary wisdom. The essence of considering what is going to make a long lasting difference in the lives of today's generation must be what comes to the minds of those making the decisions. Obviously when it comes down to it, standardized testing
Employing standardized achievement test to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon. Tablespoons have a different measurement mission then indicating how hot or cold something is. Standardized achievement tests should be used to make the comparative interpretation that they were intended to provide. They should not be used to judge educational quality. (Popham) While yes, testing across the board on one (or many) subjects highlights certain material, it does not show how in-depth said student understands the material. The United States Department of Education stated in November 2004 that if teachers cover subject matter required by the standards and teach it well, the students will master the material on with they will be tested -- and probably much more. (Testing: Frequently Asked Questions) What about after the testing? Where can the “learn to test” method be put to use after school? Physicians, lawyers, real-estate brokers, and pilots all take high stakes standardized tests to ensure they have the necessary knowledge for their professions. (McAdams) Something else to consider about standardized test results, is that it causes college acceptance numbers to decline because most colleges use SAT, and/or ACT test scores to base your academic achievement. A low score can make young adults think they are not good enough for college, when in fact, that is not always what it
Standardized Testing are required in many schools and states across our country. These tests are said to measure students academic performances in school. More and more students lives are becoming influenced by standardized testing. They are forced to memorize what they learned, not showcase it the rest of the world. People think that standardized testing is a good way to compare the performance levels of different students from different schools and also different locations. But what they don’t understand is that standardized testing is an absolute unreliable way of finding the performance of a student. Although most schools make students take these standardized tests, it for sure does not measure the knowledge and creativity within a student.
While it is true that people would say that standardized testing is a good way to help students learn and show their progress throughout the year. Many parents and even students disagree, measuring a person’s abilities should not be determined by a test or results on a page. A majority of students are not good test takers, therefore it's not fair to determine how smart a student is by looking at their progress on a test. What if a student was very smart but he wasn't a good test taker,
The American public education system uses these tests for a bench mark to know how students are doing in different states and what areas they need to improve on like math or science. Kira Zalan a editor for U.S. news weekly defines standardized test as “STANDARDIZED TESTS ARE commonly used to measure intelligence and to assign labels indicative of a student's future prospects”. These tested shouldn’t be used to label if someone is smart or not. Standardized testing is a bad idea because its not helping the students improve on the subjects they to improvement on all that is happening is teachers are teaching for the standardized test. Most teachers are focusing on teaching the students on how to past the test not actually learning the subject they need to learn. A lot of great teachers start teaching for the test because they are fearful for their job because the standardized test are also used to determine how affective teachers are and if they are able to teach students the
Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.
Standardized tests sometime are created to measure something they can’t. It is like if you take a ruler and try to take the temperature of something. Same thing for standardized tests, they can’t measure creativity, how someone collabes with others or how someone handels problems (TedEd Arlo Kempf). In a article written by Jessie B. Ramey for the Washington Post, Jessie explains why standardized tests are harmful for both the student and their educators. “Harmful stress: children are pressured to not only demonstrate their knowledge but to represent the effectiveness of their schools. Teachers are reporting children throwing up,losing control of their bowels, and increased commitments for psychiatric and anxiety issues”. Standardized tests are also harmful for the educators. Many teachers only “teach to test” this only harms the students overall learning potential and a lot of them quit because of how stressful it is to prepare students to perform good on standardized
Standardized tests are worthless because many students know their score can affect their future lives. For example, getting a low score on a state test can hurt your chance of getting into your dream college. These tests should not determine how smart a person is, and they certainly should not determine your future. Students are often doing anything in their ability to pass, including cheating, and even taking performance drugs prior to the test.