Standardized Testing

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

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.

Standardized testing has become a controversial topic in recent years, parents, students, teachers, principals and almost anyone who has a relationship with education is affected by this topic. People are either for or against standardized testing, some believe it is the only fair way to compare students others believe that the tests are too greatly stressed in school and are a nuisance to education. Standardized tests are stressed greatly, students learn testing material all year not focusing on anything else deemed unimportant by the test makers. Every student has the same amount of time and question on tests; they also are tested on the same subjects which the test makers believe are most important for children to learn. Standardized tests are used for many things such as ranking students on a national basis and government funding for schools.

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

Recently, the amount of standardized testing in the United States increased drastically. “Students are taking between ten and twenty standardized tests, depending on the grade. A total average of one hundred thirteen different ones by graduation”(Locker). A few years ago the United States, along with other nations, was given a test to assess the academic strengths and weaknesses of each nation and rank them accordingly. When the results were released and the United States was ranked near the bottom, the nation decided to start incorporating more testing through school. Between benchmark, TLI, PARCC, and common core standards, teaching pedagogy changed once again. Standardized testing has had a negative effect on teachers

Standardized testing is used throughout schools in America to measure a student’s ability to understand the material and take a test. Consequently, these tests are being used to determine a student’s future by allowing a student to pass a grade or graduate. Various amounts of students have had to retake courses or grades because of the way they scored on a standardized test. Students feel a tremendous amount of pressure to perform well on these tests. The drawbacks of standardized testing include an administrator teaching the curriculum based on the test, and the lack of reflection of education.

For over 150 years students in the United States have been given the standardized test. Flip Today, standardized testing in our nation’s schools has become the normal for …placement…etc for students in grades three through eight in all fifty states. In twelve of the fifty states standardized testing is required to graduate high school. Graduation qualifying exams are used in 12 of the 50 states. ***Standardized test measures a student’s academic a standardized test measures or standardized tests measure…progress. Many argue these standardized tests take away valuable time and resources from what students should be learning in the classroom, as well as funding the school receives, standardized testing is very costly with the test manufactures having control of the test. Teachers have been known to report the results of the standardized test do not come back until the summer as most tests are administered later in the school year so teachers have time to prepare the students for the test, once teacher receive the results they are on summer break and are preparing for a new group of students. Other teachers state there is no feedback about the student's scores so there is no feedback on what needs to be improved from the teacher's point. Studies show that many students have test anxiety, more so in students with disabilities, with

Over time standardized testing has become more and more popular. Standardized tests are commonly used in schools today. Tests are a way of checking off, and creating requirements in high school. These tests are helpful in some way but are mostly hurtful in the education of students. Parents and teachers have begun questioning if the excessive amounts of testing are really necessary for their students. They take up class time and prohibit innovation. Standardized tests are said to be a way of determining intelligence but are not always successful or helpful in teaching students.

Standardized tests are bad for teachers and students alike, and affect many aspects of their lives negatively. For example, many teachers’ jobs can depend on their student’s scores on a standardized test, and so they “teach to the test” rather than ensuring that their students have a good understanding of the entire topic. The tests fail to measure student’s overall growth, and only determine each student’s proficiency at the time of testing. The large amount of stress that is placed on students and teachers by these tests negatively affects their mental and emotional health. Finally, standardized tests create disadvantages to those who do poorly on them, and these disadvantages can affect the rest of their futures.

Standardized testing creates a lot of stress on students and educators alike. Because of how much stress is put on them to prepare students for these tests, many excellent teachers quit their jobs everyday. In fact, in April, new federal data stated that 17 percent of new public school teachers leave their profession after four years due to stress and other reasons. Some teachers fail to teach students skills that go beyond the tests because they’re so pressured to get their students ready for these exams. This amount of stress can lead to feelings of negativity towards school and learning in general as well as cause negative health issues. Standardized tests places a large amount of stress on both teachers and students.

The biggest debate in education right now is whether or not standardized testing is beneficial or harmful to the educational needs of students. Teachers today feel that standardized testing has become excessive and is impeding the learning process of today’s students. However, legislators feel that standardized testing is imperative to the assessment of the achievement gap. Research suggests that excessive standardized testing is negatively impacting schools because of its emphasis on accountability and not on learning achievement, the ramifications it’s having on teachers, and the added stress and pressure it has placed on students.

Standardized testing entails mostly true/false, fill in the blank, or multiple choice questioning. In 1991, Douglas Archbald stated that with the increase of standardized testing; student achievement and school quality has not visibly increased.  One of the original goals of standardized testing was to increase student and teacher performance, which has not been supported. Standardized testing requires the student to only use lower order thinking such as rote memory and regurgitation of useless facts. The majority of the testing includes memorization of other’s knowledge and does not encourage higher order thinking such as analysis, synthesis, and application of the materials (Archbald, 1991; Capella, 2011; Dennis & O’Haire, 2010; Elliott, 1991). Standardized testing is normative, meaning it compares students to one another. This could lead to a decrease in student self-esteem and teacher morale. In addition, results of standardized testing do not take into account application to real world settings or future careers. Standardized testing does not encourage collaboration, integration of knowledge, or application of said knowledge. The weaknesses of standardized testing lead to a movement to find an alternative; authentic assessment (Archbald, 1991; Dennis & O’Haire, 2010; Elliott,

Schools should not have standardized tests because, kids are to stressed and it waist to much time when kids could be learning something new. After my research I have came to the conclusion that there are many different opinions and concerns about weather standardized testing should be required or not. Each opinion has some logic but there are just some thing that don’t make much sense. Some people see it as a competition between students to see who can get a better score. Also if some people don’t get the score that they wanted it could put their self confidence down and make them not want to try as hard next time. They feel like these tests prove how smart they are to their parents, students, and friends.

Based upon the sources I have cited, standardized testing can be biased or unfair to students, tests are created and often are not written by people with no to little teaching experiences, teachers are forced to teach test material, thus eliminating a student's creativity, and students are given over the requirements of testing.

Standardized testing today is used in almost all schools and universities. These tests are designed in a certain way that are administered and recorded in a reliable method. Standardized testing is where all the test takers are obligatory to answer the same set of examinations. These exams sometimes have multiple choice or true or false questions, and the test takers are given a time frame to answer all the problems. Standardized testing is used to compare the performances of the individuals in a relative manner. People consider the standardized testing to be an unprejudiced way of grading a student, since the computerized scoring removes any kind of bias and subjective assessments. There is also a lot of money going into these tests every year. Millions of dollars to be exact. These tests need to be taken to be accepted in any graduate or undergraduate program. Even though most schools make students take these standardized tests, it does not measure the knowledge or the performance of the student. People assume that this testing is a good way of comparing the performance levels of numerous students from different schools and different locations. Without the standardized tests, performance levels will not be possible. People often do not realize is that standardized testing is not a reliable way measuring the performance levels and things of the students.