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Persuasive Essay On Standardizing Education

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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

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