Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

When people think of the education system, most can say that there are some problems, though they might not be able to pinpoint what needs to change first. If you ask most teachers, they will say that the first thing that needs to be changed in the schooling system to help the students more is the standardized testing. They will say that while it can be helpful it has a lot of faults and needs to be updated or changed to help its students. Standardized testing has often been a topic for discussion, between parents and people in the schooling system. It seems that a lot of people either hate standardized testing for not giving every child a chance to succeed, or love it for being a fair way to test whether a child knows what they need to know at their age. There have been many articles, books, and documentary’s debating on whether or not standardized testing is doing more harm then good. There was a comic made that shows the brutality and bluntness of what standardized testing is really like. Standardized Testing causes too much stress by putting unfair expectations on teens and doesn’t give every single student the chance to succeed.

Since Middle School, I was not opposed to standardized testing. I thought of it as a way of testing us of what we have learned. Although, after reading some articles about standardized testing I am re-thinking the pros and cons. From personal experience, I thought of it as a challenge to pass them. But now that reminisce about it, I noticed some of the cons of standardized testing. I remember having a week or two dedicated for testing, and in case of students failing they had to take time to redo it. It would take a while for all the students to finish their tests. And after remembering how it was back in those times I was more on the opposed side.

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.

One of the biggest topics in the educational world is standardized tests. All fifty states have their own standards following the common core curriculum. There are many positives and negatives that go with the standardized tests. A standardized test is any type of “examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner” (Popham, 1999). These standardized tests are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Schools use achievement tests to compare students.

The use of standardized testing to measure students’ knowledge is an inaccurate reflection of their capabilities. By being forced to take a test that does not effectively show their abilities, students become overstressed, and the tests themselves do not promote true academic achievement. Rather than learning about subjects in order to gain knowledge, students simply memorize facts and formulas to get a decent test score. Standardized tests are not an appropriate measure of student performance, only benefit certain groups of students, and do not prepare students for the real world.

Growing up in Chesapeake every student is forced to take a standardized test at the end of every class they take. Standardized testing has been a part of the educational system for so long that everyone is just accustomed to taking these tests or giving them out. Standardized testing does not just effect the students but it also effects the teachers. Chesapeake School Board should get rid of standardized testing in all grade levels because of different learning style, it limits the teachers to what they can teach and poor test scores.

Even though there are many downsides to standardized testing there are still viable reasons why they are still being used today. One of the main reasons includes the easy and quick access of testing students. Standardized testing allows schools to quickly access a large amount of students at one time. This is also one of the cheapest ways to tests such a large crowd due to machinery that grades which results in low tests costs for students. These tests also help by setting a national curriculum for all high school teachers to teach in schools. “It provides guidelines for curriculum. Standardized tests give teachers a structure of what needs to be taught. This helps keep classroom material consistent across the country” (“Pros and Cons of

Standardized tests have become a recent controversial topic across the nation. Americans strive for a great education system, but fail to realize that testing is the main issue. It is believed that they are a simple way to evaluate students from all different areas. However, there are countless faults that cannot truly show students’ ability. Standardized tests in the United States do not accurately measure intelligence and should be modified to prevent issues in academics.

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

Test scores commonly make students who are smart get misjudged if their scores are lower than other students. Test scores should not determine if a student is smart or not smart. There could be many reasons why a certain student’s scores are low. They could be stressed out, sleep deprived, or just couldn’t concentrate on the test. They could also just not be good at taking tests. I think instead of letting the tests determine “smart or not” students, teachers should look at the student’s grades in classes or even their GPA. These standardized tests also create “winners and losers.” This means that if a student scores high on a test, they are automatically considered better than the students that score low on a test. I think this is a very unfair assumption.

A standardized test is a state exam that is given to students to see how much they progressed through the school year. Some test are used to determine if they need special help that they cannot receive from one teacher alone.On the positive side of standard testing it is a reflection of how well the teacher taught that year,it also shows if the students had a good understanding of what the teacher taught.On the bad side Standardized test can cause a mass amounts of stress on the human body.Trying to study everything that you learned in 9 months into 1 week can get very stressful. The Research starters say that standardized tests are culturally and socially biased and that educators do not understand the variables that contribute to test scores.

Standardized tests may not be sufficient to determine whether a student should be admitted to a college or university or not. Having a bad day on the exam day or being responsible from irrelevant subject may result in failing the test. Moreover, those test cannot assess personal strengths and skills.

What’s your ACT score? Students are branded with their ACT and SAT scores in society. Today’s education is heavily leaning on standardized tests. An average students takes over one hundred standardized tests in his or her school years. Standardized tests are used to measure and test the knowledge of students in a particular subject in a quick and easy way. These tests are also used to see the extend and skill of students for qualifications of certain colleges and scholarships. Some of these standardized tests include the ACT and the SAT. But do these test fully measure the strength of knowledge these students have practiced for their whole lives? Standardized testing does not allow students to fully and completely show their strength in education and instead results in breaking down students mentally and physically.

Knowledge is power. Standardized tests, whether it is an achievement test or a subject-specific test, is based on your knowledge. Defined by W. James Popham, standardized test are “any test that’s administered, scored, and interpreted in a standard, predetermined manner” (“Background”). The earliest known standardized tests were documented in the 7th Century Imperial China. Later, in the mid-1800s, Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe introduced standardized testing to Boston schools. The new tests were made to compare each school and gather information about teaching quality (“Background”). Boston’s program was soon adopted to by school systems nationwide. Standardized tests have been used in America for more than 100 years (Fletcher). The modern testing movement began with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, enacted by president Lyndon Johnson in 1965. ESEA included testing accountability preparation in an effort to raise standards and make the tests more reasonable (“Background”). A few years after, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed and signed by president George W. Bush on Jan 2, 2002 (“Background”). This legislation required annual testing in reading and math in grades 2nd through 8th and again in 10th grade. If the schools did not show “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) they would face consequences and potentially be taken over by the state or closed down. Grade schools is not the only place where standardized tests occur. The SAT and ACT are by far the