Standardized Testing And The School Entrance Examination Board- Or Sat Began

Standardized tests are unnecessary because they are excruciating to the minds of many innocent students. Each year, the tests get tougher and stricter until the students cannot process their own thoughts. The tests become torturous to the minds of those only starting in the world of tests. The students already battling in the war are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the world of uncreativity and narrowness. As the walls narrow in on them, they are lost and unable to become innovative thinkers. Moreover, the implementation of standardized tests into the public school systems of the United States of America has controversially raised two different views –the proponents versus the opponents in the battle of the effectiveness of

Standardized testing in the United States started in the mid- 1800’s (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). This kind of testing was originally created to measure students’ performance and progress in school (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). In recent years, the public school system has relied heavily on the information this test provides, in doing so creating controversy. Other than being a student myself, and participating in multiple standardized exams such as, CSAP, ACT, and SAT, I do not have much background knowledge on this debate. The debate over standardized testing has raised this inquiry question: What are the effects of standardized testing on the United States public education system?

Standardized tests do not cover real-life topics. Standardized tests are less educational than parents think. States make schools take these tests in-order to get more funding and to see how the teachers are performing. These tests have many effects on the students and their grades. The Kansas Silent Reading Test is one of the first known multiple choice standardized test in America. This test was created to reduce “Time and Effort” in administration and scoring (Standardized). Although schools do use the standardized testing methods in the classrooms today that was not what it was originally used for. Standardized testing began in the United States during WWI because the Army needed a method to determine which soldiers were “Officer Material” (Billy 75).

The use of standardized examinations have long been debated in American society. In fact, the last several years have seen an immense shift from the prioritization of standardized testing to more holistic measurements of student achievement. Despite this shift, many school districts across the nation and college/university entrance requirements still place a significant, if not pivotal, emphasis on test-taking and standardized exam results. Throughout this paper, I will explore 1) the history of standardized testing, 2) arguments for and against its practice, as well as 3) situate the consequences of its use in one of the three philosophical goals of schooling. All of this will subsequently paint an investigation into the purpose of schooling in American society.

Standardized testing has been around for centuries. It has been a part of America’s education since mid 1800’s. Ever since the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, tests are now required and mandated in every state. But has their use improved America’s education?

In America, a child is expected, as early as the age of five years old, to start taking tests that will measure their skills and determine if they are ready to move on to the next level of their education. This concept of testing in the United States is not new or uncommon. Standardized achievement tests have been used since the 1800s. In the beginning of the 20th century, there were many acclaimed colleges, and a few universities, all across the nation. Unfortunately during this time there was no systematic assessment to test the abilities or knowledge of the possible incoming students, because of this the College Board was created. Soon after the SAT or the Scholastic Aptitude Test came about. Before this type of standardized testing, individual

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:

Since the mid-1800s, standardized tests have played a part in America’s education system. In 1969, the Federal Department of Education began focusing on the educational achievement of students. In 1994, the Clinton administration revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, created during the War on Poverty, to reduce achievement gaps in kindergarten through twelfth grade public education. The Clinton administration made every state that received money from the federal government for high-poverty schools begin testing their students annually. In 2002, President George W. Bush created another reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act - the No Child Left Behind Act; which focused on giving all children the opportunity

Standardized testing in the United States as we know it now all started with the state of Texas in the 1990s. The state of Texas saw the poor condition in the education system in their schools so under the governorship of George W. Bush they devolved a serious of exams high schools students had to pass in order to graduate. Testing children yearly starting from third

With any monumental rite of passage, graduation from high school must be earned. One way to ensure that a prestigious high school diploma is earned is through standardized testing. As stated by Parker, “A test has been standardized after it has been used, revised, and used again until it shows consistent results” (2016b, para. 2). It is one of the most common types of printed tests and is utilized all around the world for various reasons. One of the main reasons why institutions choose to utilize standardized testing is to measure the level of proficiency in a particular field or topic. It was first used in the United States in 1845 after Horace Mann, an advocate of public education, suggested standardized tests for math, spelling, and

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

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,

The way students learn around the country is being tailored to accommodate for the use of standardized tests and this started with President George W. Bush signing the law, No Child Left Behind. “No Child Left Behind Act which was initiated in 2002 ushered in the current era of high-stakes testing.” (NCLBA). “This law required states to administer math and reading tests every year to students from third to eighth grade and imposed increasingly harsh punishments on schools that failed to make “adequate yearly progress” on these tests.” (Mulholland). Without question, the use of standardized testing hurts the curriculum taught in school because students are now being taught to take a test versus capitalizing on their various unique genius and

Standardized testing is a topic that has been discussed for multiple years, among students, teachers, and many government officials. Standardized testing has been around for more than 150 years. Proposed by Horace Mann, standardized testing was a more appropriate way of testing a student’s ability than the oral exams (Gershon). Standardized testing is “any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions” (“Standardized Test Definition”). Originally, the idea for the tests was dismissed, however, around eighty years afterward, the “most important test of ability”, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, was started

Standardized testing is not a new concept; likewise, its use has been debated by students and educators since they became conventional. The first standardized tests were seen in the late 1800s to “aid in a variety of administrative and policy decisions” (Alcocer). By the year 1901, the College Board was established and had administered the first official College Board college entrance exam that consisted of nine different subjects (Alcocer). Many other versions of the tests were IQ exams, and many of them scored students in subjects not pertaining to school work, like athletics. By the 1930s, multiple choice style standardized tests had become so widespread that educators started to protest their effectivity; it reinforced guessing instead of the application of learned knowledge. Since then, standardized tests have not come very far. They are still in the multiple-choice format, but they only