Standardized Testing As A Government Requirement Should Be Limited

Schools around the world have a hard time with standardized tests. Students either don’t take them seriously or simply just do not know the material. Teachers try to prepare their students for these tests but it takes away valuable class time to teach useful information. Many students fail these tests because of the environment they live in at home. These tests put schools into shame when getting their scores back each year. Schools should eliminate standardized tests because the test has not improved student’s achievements, it is an unreliable measure of student performance, and these tests only measure a small portion of what makes education meaningful.

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

Recently, arguments have arisen over the issue of standardized testing. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the ACT, OGT, semester exams given by the district, or the recent implementation of PARCC tests, all are standardized tests that almost all Ohio students will encounter in their schooling career. In Aaron Churchill’s “Bless the tests: Three reasons for standardized testing,” Churchill gives his reasoning on why standardized tests are beneficial even past the assessment of students, teachers, schools, and districts. He argues, among other things, that the tests give parents a good comparison of their students to other students, hold schools accountable for student academic growth, and close the gap between different grading practices in schools. These assertions, along with the rest of the essay, are invalid.

“ I want my kids classrooms back” says many parents (Deutermann). School standardized testing is taking up so much time it is taking time away from students learning time in the classroom. Taking the many portions of standardized test is not benefiting the students. The point of standardized tests in schools to get measure of a student’s knowledge. Education plays a big role in the assessments. Education is the process of gaining knowledge, or different skills and attitudes. The tests are also a way to determine a teacher 's work ability. This topic is relevant to us because we are the ones that are taking the assessments, and teachers are the ones that have to help prepare the students for the standardized test.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB Act) is an act that was passed in 2002 on January 8th and started the debate over standardized testing in our nation. The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to test students from grades 3-8 and throughout high school, standardized tests are a direct result of government funding. Many teachers say that standard tests hinge on the "drill –to –kill" test prep style that they were used to doing before standard tests were implemented into the schools. Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post wrote that it "(triggered) an expanding revolt

In classrooms across America, standardized testing has become typical. Students are not astonished when they are informed that the state has come up with another standardized test for them to partake in. They are not astonished when told that their EOC’s, growth exams, and literacy tests are swiftly approaching. They are not astonished when they they are informed that high stake tests such as the ACT and SAT can potentially impact their entire future. Standardized testing is a system of measuring one’s intelligence and level of learning, and is heavily utilized in schools and institutes across America. Standardized tests were designed so that tests would be administered

Standardized tests have a natural connotation of being negative, useless, or time wasting. They take away valuable classroom time from teachers and their students. Most of the time, assessments are given before the material supposed to be taught has been presented to the students. Therefore, students are at a disadvantage when it comes to taking these “fail or pass” tests. However, tracking students’ progress was the original purpose and push for having standardized tests. Standardized tests should be given for their original purpose, but not in the multitude or manner they are currently presenting students with.

Imagine failing a test that alters the decisions made pertaining the future. Standardized tests are failing many schools that are serving disadvantaged children based on their knowledge on a test that is created in order to put upon higher standards for students. The No Child Left Behind Act is a law that had been signed by George W. Bush in pursuance to designate all public school students to perform standardized tests. The law had been signed in 2002 although, standardized testing had been popular and have been moving forward way before that time. Standardized testing has become very common in the United States. These tests had been set up in order to try to measure how much knowledge a student carries. Tests like STAR in California and SAT’s all over America, are forms of standardized tests that take place today. Standardized tests are not capable of measuring the ability accurately because standardized tests are measuring teachers as well as schools in an unfair manner, they are not determining consistency to keep doing well, or expressing the work ethics of the student.

Standardized tests have been around for hundreds of years. The test originated in the 1800’s. The test was created by Horace Mann. The test was to decide how students were mastering their current level of work and whether they should proceed to the next level. There were no negative consequences associated with the tests or scores. After the publication of the Coleman Report (Coleman et al., 1966), which took an in depth look into the education system and analyzed how the education system affected student achievement, the use of standardized achievement tests for accountability became the trend. It was all about everyone involved in the education of a body of students should be held accountable for the learning and teaching of those students. The teachers and others involved had to answer to the political bodies that were providing funding for the education system. In 2001 the No Child Left Behind Act was passed under the administration of President Bush. The act is based on improving instructional outcomes for students with disabilities. The

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.

Standardized testing was first implemented in schools by Lyndon B. Johnson via the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, these tests are nothing new (ProCon.org 2015). However, in recent years, the number of tests given has skyrocketed in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country. These horrid tests include Florida Standards Assessments, or FSAs (and other state-specific tests), end-of-course (EOC) exams, Advanced Placement Exams (AP Exams), and college entrance exams (ACT and SAT). From Pre-Kindergarten to Twelfth Grade, students must take and pass variations of these tests in science, math and reading in order to be considered successful in school (Hart 2015). Due to this fact, the word “standardized test” has earned a negative connotation amongst students -- who fear that these tests will determine their future -- as well as teachers and parents. Standardized tests are given too often, reduce creativity in schools, and are a poor representation of student’s abilities and

Imagine yourself stuck in a room, sitting at a desk. On that desk is a test booklet labeled “Standard Test,” with no other writing. It’s a 100 question test trying to wring every last bit of information you can remember from the past year. It’s very stressful, and frankly, very useless. Standardized tests have only proved to be useful for cramming knowledge into children's heads, and education is something more. Standardized tests are simply useless for proving what education is truly about.

Over the past several years, the controversy regarding standardized testing has grown. Even though schools all over the United States have been using the ACT, SAT, and statewide exams for years, it is obvious for a variety of reasons that standardized testing should no longer be included in schools. Many fear that as time goes on, additional unnecessary tests will arise, and the education system will become a test factory rather than a way for students to prepare for their futures in society.

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.

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