Should Standardized Tests Measure Children 's Intellect?

Students take up to 112 standardized tests preschool to 12th grade. Students take too many standardized tests. People might think that students don’t take a lot of standardized tests but they do. I think that the government should change these tests. This essay is going to explain to the reader that the government should change standardized test because (1) students take too many of them,(2) they put stress on teachers, and(3) it takes up too much learning time.

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.

The earliest record of standardized testing originates from China. It was created to test knowledge of Confucian poetry and philosophy for men applying for government jobs. In 1905 a man by the name of Alfred Binet created his own,

What is standardized testing? Standardized testing is a test which is given to students to evaluate the knowledge which they know. Testing can be in all subjects and topics in education. In Minnesota there is the MCA ( Minnesota Common Assessment). The MCA can be taken from elementary to high school, and the students are tested on subjects they have learned from the past. In Minnesota the MCA is a test which the government requires students to take. On a national level there is the ACT and SAT. These are usually taken as entrance exams to colleges and universities. ACT and SAT are two different types of test they have differ in grading systems and some colleges take both or one of the two. Why are standardized test given? The test are given so people in charge can evaluate the performance of the student and school; also gage the knowledge of the student. But standardized test like the ACT can not be an effective way to improve instruction and performance because it is a competency focused test. The reason why standardized test are competence: They test students on how well they can eliminate the incorrect answers to find the correct one. This is an inefficient way because what if the test taker crosses out the wrong answer, this forces the taker to choose between two wrong answers. There's needs to be tested efficiently and accurately gage their knowledge.

By World War I, standardized testing was a common practice in the United States. It started with the Chinese, filling out tests to determine job status among the workers. During the industrial revolution, children left the farms and land to sit behind a desk, which caused the need to test a large amount of children quickly. The most common and well-known in our society are the SAT and ACT, which became a common rite of passage into universities in our society. There are many different views on standardized testing, creating a rift in our society, whether it has positive or negative impacts on our educational community and futures of children in our country.

Standardized testing has been practiced in schools across America since the mid-1800’s. Today, they are used to assess where a student is placed in their educational career. Standardized tests commonly test students in the subjects of math, reading, writing, and science. Colleges also partially base their admissions on standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT. According to the Pew Center on the States, annual state spending on standardized tests rose from $423 million to almost $1.1 billion in 2008. (standardizedtests.procon.org) With states spending this much money on these tests, many question how well they actually work. Students are essentially being judged on what they know on the spot, and to many that determines

Standardized testing had only been added to America’s public education curriculum when “the common school movement began in earnest in the 1830s in New England as reformers… began to argue successfully for a greater government role in the schooling of all children” (“Common School”). “By 1845 in the United States, public education advocate Horace Mann was calling for standardized essay testing” (Mathews), because he believed that “political stability and social harmony depended on universal education” (“Common School”), and that these tests would help teachers “find and replicate the best teaching methods so that all children could have equal opportunities” (Gershon). There weren’t any other well known attempts at standardized testing until “the College Entrance Examination Board—… or SAT—began in the 1920s” (Gershon). Later “in the 1960s, the federal government started pushing new achievement tests designed to evaluate instructional methods and schools” (Gershon), because the Cold War “fueled a space race and increased pressure on U.S. schools to show improvement” (Mathews). However, it wasn’t “until the mid-1970s, when the College Board revealed that average SAT scores had been falling since 1963” (Mathews), that the country realized “public school standards were too low” (Mathews). This is the reason why “Congress created the National Assessment Governing Board” (Mathews), an organization which ”established new standards for the National Assessment of Educational

Standardized tests have been around for over 200 years. One of the first standardized tests appeared in the 1800s, when Horace Mann introduced the concept of using exams in Boston schools to gain information about the quality of learning and teaching in schools, (Edwards). Boston schools used the first standardized tests to compare teachers and schools, and to monitor the quality of instruction. Edwards then states in the article:

Students take the standardized tests all throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school, and also college. In elementary school we took the OAA, then in junior high we took the PARCC test. In high school there are many assessments that you will have to take. You might take the PARCC, ACT, and also SAT. In the late 1980s, laptops and internet use have been used more and more in schools. Internet use has made a greatly impacted teaching styles. We are now using laptops and the internet to take the standardized tests. Many governments spend a lot of time investing large amounts of money to provide a good education for students across the world. Some people that standardized testing goes against different culture groups.

Another problem with standardized tests is that they cause unnecessary stress for students of all ages. There has been an increase in stressful standardized tests that is somewhat disconcerting. “By the late 1980s, most states required some type of mandatory testing; by 1991, students who completed high school took, on average, 18-21 standardized tests in their career…”(Solley). Standardized tests can be demanding for many students. Students who are not natural test takers can have difficulty achieving proficiency on

Do you feel that standardized testing has benefited the way that students learn in the classroom? Has it hindered their learning?

You may wonder, Why do we have standardized tests? They were created so that the government could keep track of how schools were performing and they wanted to see how the money they gave the schools was being used. “In 1965, as part of the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration sent extra federal funding to low-income schools, and in return asked for data to make sure the money was making an impact.”(Rizga) “Standardized tests have been a part of American . education since the mid-1800s.” (Standardized) Standardized testing has been in our lives for over 150 years and it has been used to keep track of the education level of the citizens. “The modern testing movement began with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), enacted

On the subject of high rates of failure among students in today's education system with its hundreds of complicated exams, this is strongly indicated by Lyndsey Layton from The Washington Post. She writes, “A typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-Kindergarten classes and 12th grade, a new Council of the Great City Schools study found. By contrast, most countries that outperform the United States on international exams test students three times during their school careers.” Perhaps this is indeed a truth, as the so-called “Common Core State Standards Initiative” was met with much criticism and

According to a research made by the Council of Great Big Schools, students take about 112 mandatory tests between Pre-K and 12th Grade. These tests are given by the state to keep schools and teachers accountable for the learning of each student. Unfortunately, these tests have not done their job well. In fact, standardized testing has become the downfall of most public schools today.

Standardized Testing has been around for many decades in the United States. In 2001 George Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act was used as a teacher evaluation tool and not a student evaluation tool. It was a misconceived belief that teachers were giving easier tests to show higher grades for their students it was also believed that the same teachers were bumping grades to make themselves look better and more effective (Introduction: No Child Left Behind. 2005). The push for standardized testing came from Universities and Colleges because they were using Secondary Education grades as part of their admission process and they were discovering that some students were coming in with a less than proficient skill set that did not match up to the grades that showed on