Examining The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing By Derrick Meadors

Standardized testing is suppose to benefit a student in many ways but a lot of kids don’t feel like it does. Some students have fear taking a standardized test. Those kids who make good grades but get usually get nervous before tests, normally struggle while taking their exam. Many times it causes students to stress and feel overwhelmed distracting them from their grades. (Ms. Moore), a teacher in Ohio believes that, “you don’t teach kids to perform well on standardized tests, you teach kids to learn, to enjoy learning and to not treat it as such a negative. When did learning in America become a negative?” (Analysis; Pros & Cons). Though education isn’t always fun, it shouldn’t cause students to stress over a test score. It also makes students give up once they know their test score is low.

Schools around the world have a hard time with standardized tests. Students either don’t take them seriously or simply just do not know the material. Teachers try to prepare their students for these tests but it takes away valuable class time to teach useful information. Many students fail these tests because of the environment they live in at home. These tests put schools into shame when getting their scores back each year. Schools should eliminate standardized tests because the test has not improved student’s achievements, it is an unreliable measure of student performance, and these tests only measure a small portion of what makes education meaningful.

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 tests are hurting our educational future. They were implemented for reasons such as evaluating teachers, schools, districts, and so forth, and to determine if students should advance to a higher grade. What standardized tests are actually doing is taking over students’ education. Different levels of the educational system are continuously requiring more tests to assess various objectives, without any evidence that these tests are benefiting students. The effects these tests are having on the education are crippling. Teachers are under a surmountable amount of pressure for their students to achieve high scores, since their careers are in the hands of them. Teachers are reverting to unethical practices to protect their careers. Valuable education time is lost with preparing for and taking of these tests. Students could advance their education further and quicker with less preparation and tests. These tests are not an accurate assessment of students’ abilities since they only assess few subjects. Comparing students’ on only a portion

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

In the United States, standardized testing is being used everywhere around the country. There has been controversy on whether it is actually an effective way of testing. These tests are deemed to be important to schools, since teachers spend countless hours trying to get students to master what will be on the test. This interferes with engaging lessons in which students spend less time learning and spend more time memorizing. These tests require a certain amount of hours to be taken, which interfere with valuable class time. Not only do these tests do absolutely nothing except restrict the learning environment of a student, they are inequitable, they don’t adequately measure a student's

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.

Standardized tests were given to individuals hoping to acquire a position in the Chinese government during the 7th century, Medieval Knights hoping to be selected to defend their kingdom, and Army officer candidates during World War I. However, only recently have they been used to test the level of knowledge possessed by a student in the classroom. Laws are being introduced by government officials that are requiring schools to meet nearly unattainable standards. The required criterion is placing enormous pressure on school districts, administrators, and teachers. Standardized tests should no longer be used

42% of high school seniors in Ohio are not set to graduate because of their poor scores on standardized tests. Students all over the United States are forced to participate in statewide standardized tests each year. Many claim that standardized testing allows for teachers to help their students easier, and that it holds school districts accountable. While school mandated standardized testing can be useful, statewide standardized testing is ineffective and negatively impacts students.

Standardized tests set a standard for all students to be at the same level of intelligence and comprehension, whether it be Keystone exams, Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT), or the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, America is obsessed with having their students reach a certain score or better. With the addition of high school exit exams, are we taking standardized testing too far? The argument that the Washington Post gives in one of its articles uses arguments such as the facts that come from these tests and what should be required of graduating high school.

Who pays for the standardize tests that just repeatedly test students over the same things? Is it the tax payers, schools, local, state, or are these tests government funded? Here are the exact words from an article from the eduFocus, “According to a study by Brown Center on Education Policy, a sufficient education isn’t the only thing that standardized tests are costing students, school districts, and tax payers. The study finds that 44 states spend upwards of a collective $1.7 billion on standardized testing each year of grades K through 12. The state of Pennsylvania alone spent over $58M on standardized testing, roughly $33 per student (assuming all students are tested every year).” (Strauss). Where else could that money go? It could make

Although they have been used for such a long time, it would be easy to get people together in protest of the test. A nation-wide petition could be signed by all who oppose standardized tests which could then be sent to school legislatures. One person quietly complaining will not do much, but get thousands of people to do it in a smart, political way could really arise the question of if these tests are truly meaningful. So many different factors come into play when it comes to standardized tests. A school system should not use them as the sole factor of a student’s academic success ability. Timing the test is an unfair quality, because some people lack intelligence in comparison of others. Advanced rigor is unfair because certain students don’t have the capability of moving ahead as others might. Yes, a standardized test can help find a student’s strengths and weaknesses, but

Our education system should be teaching kids how to live in the real world. Standardized test don’t. Kids should be able to gain knowledge, solve problems, be more creative, and enhance their thinking schools. Standardized tests don’t help with that. These test, such as the ACT and the SAT, are used to show how students perform against other students who take the same test. They are also used to help teachers decide what to teach in their classrooms. Kids are expected to gain knowledge from these test, but no real progress has been shown. The amount of test we take should be reduced.

think about standardized testing they start to freak out causing an abundance of stress on the students. According to “Test Stress and Academic Anxiety”, “during the 2014 spring testing season it was marked by a widespread reports from teachers and parents of students getting physically sick and emotionally distraught over the standardized tests. It prompted many parents to exercise the option of refusing to let their children take the test”, (Frenette, 2015, par. 3). Teachers and parents can even see the stress levels rising in students when it comes close to testing time. Students are highly aware of the high stakes attached to these state and national exams. Doing poorly on a state exam like KPREP or CATS testing in elementary school and middle school could result into teachers getting in trouble or even in some cases fired. Basing if someone has a job to pay their bills all on if the students to well on their test is ridiculous and causes stress at a young age. Students understand that their scores affect everyone in the school system. Due to this some students have displayed signs of extreme emotions and physical stress. According to Standardized Testing, “Educators report that children have begin crying, vomiting, or acting out from testing pressure. In 2014 Kate Wolfe, a third grader at Holiday Hill Elementary in Jacksonville, Florida, came home in tears and hyperventilating over her Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Kate realized near the end of the test that she had filled out her bubble answer sheet wrong” (Mooney, 2015). Children clearly do not need all this extra stress in their lives at such a young age.