Pros And Cons Of The SOL Test

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

While standardized testing satisfies the states mandate to test students in grades 3 through 8, students are put at a disadvantage because of the rigor that they are put through to simply get a passing grade. Most schools if they participate in standardize testing starts preparing and testing the students earlier than is required because their funding depends on the number of passing grade that they get. Due to the amount of pressure surrounding the preparation for these tests, children are notably playing less daily because they have to spend more time reading and doing math thus reducing their development in key areas of their growth. Children learn through play and playing encourages creativity among other

Back when I was a senior in high school, STAAR testing did not apply to us. It was brand-new to the school district. Thankfully we did not have to take it because we still had TAKS testing going on still. From what I’ve heard about STAAR from the lower class-men, it was not the “funnest” some say it was even more challenging than the TAKS test and to prove my point I got this quote from http://www.emsisd.com/Page/13156 stating that “The new STAAR assessments will be designed to be more difficult than TAKS”. In a way I think that it is good that they are challenging students a little bit harder but at the same time it is not fair to them because for instance STAAR did not apply to me (upper class-men), it took affect after I graduated from high

Standardized testing, in a nutshell, is a test designed to measure the intelligence of its takers. It is often given every year from pre-K till you graduate High School. The comic captures what standardized testing is like on a national level. It is a bunch of animals, including a fish, elephant, dog, and a monkey etc. and the teacher in the

As I stated before, those are only a few pros and cons. Now, to the main question at hand, are the SOL's helping us? In my opinion, no. The SOL's are a useless test that causes useless stress on countless students and teachers. It tests you on how to test. It isn't helpful beside it being better than written tests. In my opinion we should completely get rid of the SOL's and let other items rank the school, like graduation rates, or after school activity options. The only reason SOL's are good is because they get faster return of student scores than paper pencil tests.

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.

One of the issues is SOLs putting too much stress on children, the answer is yes. SOLs have increasingly gotten harder every year, and children have the pressure of just passing it or failing it and risk not progressing to the next grade. For example in Florida, there were some parents discussing issues with the board about their children used to like school, but due to the testing they don’t want to go to school. One parent broke down in tears about the stress and is thinking about taking their child out of public school to homeschool her/him because of SOLs. Consequently, there have been countless stories of children taking Xanax to cope or even having to go to the emergency room due to stress related incidents. Let’s examine the list of students who

Students who feel that they will not do well on the test lose interest in school and begin to become frustrated ,students can experience anxiety and children with learning disabilities are treated

The STAAR test creators can find a way to help them or change the test in a way that will make it less stressful. Remember we could just take shorter challenging tests and then the students won’t have to worry about failing and won’t suffer anymore.

Additionally, standardized tests have the ability to make or break a student. Today, children are being failed, denied access to an advanced program or school, or even refused a high school diploma on the basis of a single standardized test (Sacks 3). Moreover, these tests can determine whether students will spend their summer vacation on the beach or sweating out summer school. Since standardized tests have a great deal of power, students are forced to prepare for them rather than learn valuable knowledge, simply for the sake that they can graduate or enter into the program or school of their choice.

Each year high school students from around the country take the SAT or ACT. The ACT and SAT are both standardized test used by colleges to determine the knowledge of a student and predict what their performance will be in their first year of college. An immense amount of pressure is put on student to receive certain scores in order to obtain scholarships and admission into college. Even just one point on a student’s score can determine if they will be accepted into their dream college. However, the results from standardized tests, such as the ACT and SAT, are often inaccurate. Because of this one’s knowledge and academic ability are misrepresented, and they are denied certain opportunities. Standardized tests such as the ACT and the SAT

Many other factors are taking place during the test, many students suffer from a high amount of anxiety on the test day. Which prevents them from using primary thinking skills.

Although standardized tests do not accurately represent a student’s performance and future, they do present the opportunity to test an individual’s general knowledge. The tests also give students the chance to test their test-taking efficiency and time management, whether or not the individual is under tremendous amounts of stress. With these assessments, students can rank their performance and improve for future tests.

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.

In addition, these tests rates a student’s performance on simply one certain day and does not take into account outside factors. There are many kids who just don’t do good on tests. Many of these students understand the content and are intelligent, but it doesn’t appear on the test. Some students also develop test anxiety, which affects how well they