Should Standardized Testing Be Required Essay

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.

There are many valid arguments, deeming it unfair to multiple parties. For example, those who speak a different language or have immigrated to the United States cannot easily be equipped to handle the standardized testing well known to our community, because they do not have enough time to master our language before being thrust into the testing realm. Special education students are also discriminated against, having to take the same standard of testing as their peers who do not have special needs. Standardized tests also don’t measure anything outside the scope of what is deemed meaningful education. “According to late education researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include "creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity."” (ProConorg). There is also the argument that teachers are just “teaching the test” rather than instilling our young generation with predominant qualities needed to be successful in life. These tests, according to studies done, are narrowing the curriculum taught, and increasing the price on testing, making it difficult on our educational system’s budgets. Some believe that

Students should not take standardized tests. They cause frustration and stress; also schools are devoted to passing them and spend most of the year

Don’t all students hate standardized tests. They waste lots of time and don’t influence your grade so then what’s the point of them. I think that students shouldn’t take standardized tests. First of all students take the test in May and don’t get the results until September so the test doesn’t do much. Lots of teachers also only teach to the test meaning they only prepare them to pass the test. Students might know the content but because of test anxiety they might not be able to show it on the test.

Standardized test cause reduced content knowledge. In other words, teach the test criteria and nothing more. The scores that everyone is trying to get only give a person a small amount of the knowledge that, without the test, they would obtain. Theses scores are drilled so hard into a student’s head that they do not know any other thing to do than to pass that test. Barber states in his article that there were three groups of people, elected officials from the school board, the press, and the public. He said that “All three groups were clamoring for something simple and repeatable to use to judge how well their schools were doing.” He goes on to say that they thought standardized testing was just that. They wanted to compare other schools to their school, that it gives them those bragging rights. This will eventually create a ripple effect, and come back on the schools in harmful ways.

One reason that standardized tests should be made optional is that the education system has become a test preparation system. Schools have started to shift instruction time from college preparatory classes to learning and practicing lessons needed to pass the tests. The change in instruction time results from an increased number of

In various ways, standardized test are beneficial from tracking students’ progress over the years to not allowing teachers emotions to get in the way of the testing process. Standardized testing sets expectations high for students and it does hold them accountable for the same standards, which may lead to achievement gains. By looking at the students’ performance they will be able to determine how well they retain information. Also the school is able to learn what their students are able to do and what they cannot do compared to other school districts, so they would be able to improve their education system. When giving more personal assessments, it is very possible “that the teacher or person assessing the student can let their emotions or biases affect how they score that student” (Young). In most cases, standardized tests are objective. There are wrong or right answers, and there is no room for feelings or emotions. Standardized testing gives teachers guidance to help them determine what to teach students and when to teach it. Tests are highly accountable and reliable as they judge the candidates on a common platform across states and nations. Standardized testing is “a simplified way of timeline management” (A Look at the Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing). Standardized testing gives parents a good idea of how their children are doing as compared to students across the country and

Would you like to take a test that is unfair, expensive, and unreliable? Chances are you already have. Standardized testing in schools is not only bad for the students, but also bad for our country’s future. Some might think standardized testing is a good thing, because it is the only way to measure all students the same across the country. However, this thought is wrong for many reasons.

In the world today standardized testing is mandatory in all schools whether they are public or private. If schools continue to make these test mandatory, students grades will show the reflection of what they are not learning. The school might also receive less state funding due to poor performance on these tests. Once No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was introduced US students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st in 2009 (Standardized). Standardized testing is not beneficial overall because it does not cater to all students, they do not cover real-life topics, and they are detrimental to students.

Although standardized testing has been a major part of schooling it has also had a negative impact on effective education. Standardized has made a huge impact on public schooling so much that not only does it affect the students but also the teachers. With the teachers now beginning to get raises or having their jobs on the line if their students fail the test, many students have not been getting the fullest education process that they could get. Students may not realize the impact that it has had on the type of teaching style that they receive because they are so used to it. With so many teachers not having a lot of time to teach what is on the test and the other things that they feel are important to students to know, a lot of

Standardized testing has been a major debate for over sixteen years and is still going on in some districts all over the United States. The debate is over who agrees with having standard tests in their schools and who doesn’t, although it’s mostly parents and guardians rather than students who are debating this. There are many pro’s and con’s to having standard tests in schools such as the student is too stressed to be motivated to do their work properly or perhaps it could be because the student suffers from depression whereas on the other hand, teachers are being able to tell where a student is truly at in the course and can help them get back on track and understand what it is that they are learning.

The standardized tests not only affect the students, but everyone else that is involved. It affects students by causing them stress and if they are unprivileged they do not get the tutoring and help that the privileged ones do (Reddell). Privileged children can get tutors to help teach them more about a topic. The unprivileged kids can get free tutoring at school but some are too embarrassed or scared to go ask for help. A kid should not be embarrassed about asking for help on a subject they are having troubles in they should be able to go to any teacher and not have other students around them making fun just because they are getting help because they do not know something. These tests have caused so much stress on not just students but also the teachers (Reddell). Students get more stressed over these tests than teachers do. They know that they need to try their best and it puts a ton of weight on them. Even though they can retake the test that does not mean a senior can. If a senior is to take these tests and fail then they have to come back either for summer school or back for a whole other year. It is not fair to a senior if they fail the test and have to come the next year or even during the summer just because he did not pass. A test should not be the reason he does not get to go to college that year and has to

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.

A very current and ongoing important issue happening within the education system is standardized testing. A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a calculated, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students might perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT’s and the ACT’s. The SAT and the ACT attempt to estimate how well high school students will perform in college. But standardized test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use: California Achievement Tests,

To begin with standardized testing creates several critical problems for students and for the education industry. These tests are created to test over particular things. In the end these types of tests are only limited in the amount of knowledge that can be tested toward students. For example, “Standardized exams offer few opportunities to display the attributes of high-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity.” (“Standardized Testing Has Serious Limitations”). Even though these tests are able to attack certain subjects at the core, they still leave out very valuable and critical information that all students should know. In