Should We Care About Standardized Testing?

Standardized testing has been an inevitable part of life for countless Americans, making them question the validity of their life choices since the third grade. When taking standardized tests, one encounters some obvious drawbacks. Any student who has been forced to take one of the hundreds that exist can recount the tales of stress and feelings of inadequacy that linger after every test taken.

Any person that has ever been in school has taken some kind of standardized test. These tests usually start around third grade and last until students graduate. Every college in the nation requires some type of standardized test for admission, so standardized testing is very important for any student that wants to go to college. Every student remembers sitting, waiting, and taking a test that lasts hours and wanting it to be over as soon as possible, but most students and parents don’t even know what these tests do for kids and if they even help students or not. There are many pros and cons to this topic that have been pondered many times. Questions such as, “Should students even take these tests”, or “what do these massive tests do to help

“Standardized testing has become the arbiter of social mobility, yet there is more regulation of the food we feed our pets than of the tests we give our kids ” (Schaeffer). Standardized tests have commonly been used to evaluate a student’s knowledge of a particular subject over the course of a class, or to compare students with one another. Therefore, standardized tests are being used to make serious decisions for students in 2014. Decisions such as grade promotion, high school graduation, and the college a student will or will not attend are among the life changing outcomes of a single standardized 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 are being forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure is being spent on preparing students for standardized tests. So much more is being sacrificed, for instance schools are cutting back on or even eliminating electives, programs in the arts and recess for young children. The focus on standardized tests is putting children in the 21st century at risk for emotional, psychological, and intellectual harm.

Understandably, it is commonly argued too many standardized tests are being given. The average student takes 112 standardized tests in their elementary through their high school career; it is equivalent to 8 standardized tests per year (Strauss 1). “Standardized Tests ProCon.org” released an article in 2016 about standardized testing and mentioned a study by the Brookings Institution, tests are supposed to be a measure of student performance; the study suggested standardized tests taken on a yearly basis improvements were only temporary and didn’t impact long-term learning (1). Studies have looked at testing practice of schools located in big cities and protests started about the exams. After a study, there was a national opt-out movement of students opting out of mandatory standardized testing. After this opt-out movement, Common Core standards fueled the fire because teachers started refusing to administer giving standardized tests; they were also begging their schools to inquire change for their state’s testing requirements. The concerns of too much standardized testing is turning into a live political issue, which may turn into a complete movement.

The purpose of education has shifted from learning & gaining knowledge to see how well students can show patience, obedience, and willingness to work, so that colleges can pick out people that are going to work hard (Brabeck).We memorize, study for the test and forget it and repeat the cycle all over again. That’s why when young children ask adults or parents for help with their homework, they struggle to help because they can’t remember it. Also if the purpose of school was to learn, than why do they make us do standardized testing ? Standardized testing is not used in any way to see how much we’ve learned, but rather how much we can memorize/remember. Which is creating a conformity within our learning, and destroying creativity (Brabeck).

What is Standardized Testing? Well, according to John W. Santrock it is “tests that have uniform procedures for administration and scoring and often allow a student’s performance to be compared with the performance of other students at the same age or grade level on a national basis.” (Santrock, 5th edition, pg. 515). Of course standardized testing can have a lot of different meanings to a lot of different kids and students. In school I can remember feeling the anxiety of having to take a test almost every school year. I remember how I loved going to school but when I got older I constantly dreaded going to school. Testing took all the fun out of it for me, it was tired of hearing that so and so didn’t score high enough and the

“Standardized tests are administered, scored, and interpreted in a consistent way, so that the performances of large groups of students can be compared (How Standardized Tests Shape—and Limit—Student Learning, 2014).” I discovered that standardize testing is a significant part of education in an elementary setting. In fact, tests are given in all four core areas of English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies every Four to six weeks (Dougherty, 2015). Standardized testing primary started in 2002 after the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (Is the Use of Standardized Tests Improving Education in America?, 2015). The NCLBA required testing in reading and math and science starting in third grade through eighth grade

Many educational professionals feel that without standardized testing there would be no consistency in measuring student achievement and assessing the efficiency of teachers. Some say that by taking the SAT or ACT, students are able to set themselves apart from other students and show that they are college ready. Test scores also make it easy to assess a school’s performance because they are quantifiable and are able to be easily compared with other schools. Standardized testing enables a fair comparison between students, as there is no room for bias grading.

Part of our future is determined by how good we are in a test. Over the past decade, schools use standardized test for several purposes. For example, to pass students from the schools, to know their learning progress in schools, to place them in a class suited their abilities, or to measure their worthiness to enroll to a university. “A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner “

Standardized tests, we start taking them in elementary school, we progress to tougher tests in high school to help us get into college, then there are even harder tests to help us get a job, but how useful, are they? Throughout elementary, middle, and high school they prepare us for these tests, students spend countless hours. As you will see in this paper these tests prepare you from elementary through high school and beyond.

What are standardized tests? Standardized tests are exams that are administered, scored, and interpreted in the same way for all students. Now there are many pros and cons of standardized testing however, I believe that public and private schools should just abolish standardized testing all together. These tests determine a student’s academic performance and each student is given the same test with the same questions and answers. These tests are designed to measure the students learning capabilities and comprehension on certain subjects but not every student learns or reveals academic achievement in the same way. It is impossible to have a test that will accurately reflect every student's effort and knowledge. Tests alone are stressful

“Standardized test” is defined as a test that has already been used on a wide population of subjects; its results are not limited to application to a particular test group (“Standardized Test”). Standardized tests are given to students of all grade levels many times throughout the school year. Standardized tests should not be given as frequently as they are because they serve no educational value, they stress students too much, and they force teachers to teach the test instead of the actual curriculum. Standardized tests started as a source to show if the curriculum was being taught to its full potential. It has since, however, morphed into something that is more of a burden than a help.

In today’s society, every student is required to take standardized test at least once in their lifetime. Whether it’s the SAT or ACT, it doesn’t matter but every student will go through the same type of testing procedure. Forms of standardized testing, have been apparent as far back as the pre-civil war, and throughout the years have been increasingly important for students. However, the importance is becoming a topic of controversy. People are arguing that these test do not accurately portray how successful a student will be in college, that students from a higher socioeconomic background score better than those from lower ones, that there are racial biases within the test, and test anxieties are affecting the performances of students on these tests.

A standardized test is a type of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions in the same way. The tests are graded in a “standard” manner, which makes it easy to compare the performances of individual students. Researchers argue that standardized testing is a necessary tool in measuring students’ knowledge, skills and understanding. They believe standardized tests are objective, fair, efficient, and comprehensive. Although standardized tests are a key tool in the education system they need to be reassessed and have more lead way. Standardized tests can have a very negative impact on students and the test results are not entirely reliable. Parents should be able to have the option to opt their child out of standardized tests, if deemed necessary.

Why are Standardized Tests being taken more and more by students in the United States? What do these tests inform us about and what do they not inform us about? Are we positive that students are not cheating on these types of test? These questions are just a fraction of the question asked by parents, educational officials, teachers, and students, since the No Child Left Behind Law took action. Standardized Testing is a controversial topic that provides benefits and drawbacks of teacher and student progress.