Standardized Testing: Does It Really Tell Academic Performance?

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.

Forms of standardized testing have been around since the Sui dynasty time period, in which the Sui and Tang dynasties conducted imperial examinations in order to test those that hoped for government positions. Many other cultures have adopted it as well and refined it into almost an art form; for example, the United States. The United States began to conduct standardized testing around the time of the First World War; these tests measured the abilities of soldiers in order to give them jobs according to their results. Although the approaches to standardized tests are very different, the same general concept is the same. Since then there has been an increase of standardized tests: SAT, ACT, ASVAB, TAKS, STAAR, and EOC’s, just to name a few.

Standardized testing has become a multi-million dollar business that has shown no substantial progress on the public school system across the nation. Our students and schools are being robbed of expressing creativity and critical thinking skills while major corporations are gaining more and more financial stability. Since the implementation of the harsh testing guidelines, it has forced

Standardized testing is not a reliable way to measure the performance because it does not measure the skills and knowledge in a more meaningful way like creativity, which plays a key role to attain high level of achievement. The tests contain a number of items whose comments and administration is done in uniform procedures. For the reason that most of the tests are multiple choices, the results of the test are reflected by intellectual ability; however, the test discourages creativity skill of students, which plays an important role to be successful. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers: The Stories of Success,” he argues that the creativity of student plays an

I would like to take the time to discuss the issues that standardized testing is causing college bound students. Standardized testing is an evaluation of a student's performance on one particular day and does not take into account factors that could affect the test such as, the students rest, nutrition, the testing environment, and emotions of the student.. Standardized testing has caused teachers to move to a way of teaching called “teach to the test”, which can overall hinder a student's learning potential, because they are simply learning the information for the test and will quickly forget what they learned. Along with other reasons, the “teach to the test” method has damaged students creativity and creates a boring learning environment.

The following article “ Does standardized testing really evaluate your kid’s learning?” written by Tim Johnson, examines the effects of standardized testing for parents, students and teachers while evaluating the importance linked to student success. This article looks at the increase of anxiety for all members that are involved when standardized testing is held, and the debate on whether the results should dictate where to purchase a home. Dissenting and supporting arguments are present within the article, as some say it helps parents to understand how the child is performing in key areas, which can aid how teachers can improve classroom learning. However some argue that the standardized testing is misleading, as it does not give a comprehensive

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

There is much controversy about wether standardized tests benefit students taking them. Some people believe that standardized tests benefit children others believe that standardized tests do not test a child’s abilities completely. I believe that standardized tests don't benefit students. In this story I will explain why I believe that standardized tests don’t benefit students.

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).

The article being studied talks about the correlation (if any) between standardized testing and creativity, and was conducted in Ontario. 8 teachers were asked to look at how their methods of teaching are accountable for the two terms. Responses showed that their methods were affected, because they teach different things from the tests, and concluded that creativity would not develop in a class that is solely for improving standardized test scores. However, they also said these tests would also give the students a "basic foundation" to develop creative thinking in math and reading - related subjects. All in all, according to the abstract, creativity as well as standardized testing is important factors in a student's learning process. The purpose

Standardized tests are administered and scored in a consistent manner. In the US, schools give out 112 test; In Finland, schools give out 1 test at the end of 12th grade. The Finland’s Standardized test is called “the National Matriculation Examination” , which is taken at the end of high school, and graded by actual teachers. The test contains questions that ask students to show their ability to cope with multiple issues; Issues that span across multiple subjects and often require multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills.

Rise and shine. Dress yourself and get to school. Sit through class after class while teachers try, to the best of their ability, to stuff bundles of knowledge into your head for the oh-so-important standardized tests. Go home and try to make sense of this sea of information for your good and your school’s. Repeat. This is the normal routine for students to undergo in order to reap acceptable grades on standardized tests. The cost of these tests aren 't worth the so-called benefits. Standardized testing is an ineffective tool in the education system because it is detrimental to students’ education and it has negative effects on students.

Exams are like your girlfriend. They ask way too many questions, they are difficult to understand, there is always more explanation needed, and of course the result is you always fail. I like to think this accurately describes how most people feel about standardized tests, but then again, I don't really think people ever feel fondly about a standardized tests. Now we have taken standardized test since elementary school so why do we all still suck at them? Let’s face it America has a pretty bad average on test taking skills. Maybe it's because of the fact that up until you’re a junior in high school none of those other standardized test matter. Those tests are basically just an excuse for you not to have to go through your normal boring school

Ever since standardized testing started being used as a way to evaluate the intelligence of students and the teachers’ ability to educate, the standard of actual education has been diminished immensely. Standardized testing is used in most public and private schools to analyze students’ knowledge. It has affected the way in which students learn and has corrupted the methods teachers use to educate. In some cases, English-Learning and disabled students face discrimination from teachers since teachers have more responsibility to have a high number of passing students. Some countries around the world don’t use standardized tests to rank their students or schools and yet they have been successful. Standardized tests are not efficient on making students learn, they should not be used to evaluate students’ knowledge.

Standardized tests were created during the First World War as a tool to measure the “intellect, ability, and potential” of the soldiers in the army (Turgut 64-65). From World War I to the launch of Sputnik I by the Soviet Union, standardized tests were used to enable development and have aided in progress of a country. Standardized tests have also been introduced into the education system to measure the student’s intelligence in a subject.