The No Child Left Behind Act and Standardized Testing:
State, National, and International
American Education has been a work in progress for the past century and a half. To measure its progress, successes, and failings, there are standardized tests. These tests have been used to compare schools, states, and nations. The key subjects being tested as a universal measure are mathematics, reading, and science. To help improve the scores on these tests, the United States put into law the No Child Left Behind act in 2001. When mention of this act is made, it brings several serious questions to mind. What is the No Child Left Behind act? What is it doing for our education system on a local, national and international scale? And how does it
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A pointed question would be: is it working? One of the purposes of standardized testing is to answer that question. In the U.S. today, there is a great deal of emphasis being placed on children passing the many standardized tests that have been imposed. By means of standardization, education can now be weighed and have its progress tracked. The performance of students is now a matter of numbers and statistics. The most ambitious form of standardized testing as a form of comparison is the Program for International Student Assessment or PISA. This international testing includes 60 nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and ranks the performance of 15-year-old students in the core subjects. When the results of the 2009 PISA testing were released, the United States was faced with the harsh reality that our students are falling behind. American students placed 14th in reading literacy, which shows no improvement since 2000, 25th in mathematics, which is still below average, and 17th place in scientific literacy which was an improvement from the below average scores in 2006. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan granted that it was a small victory in his 2009 address, but he remained firm in the fact that America can do better (Duncan, 2010). Such questions as why the low scores are being produced and what to do about it are still a matter of heated debate. Members of the Common Core, who wrote an extensive
After the No-Child-Left-Behind (NCLB) bill was introduced by the Bush administration in 2001, the use of standardized tests skyrocketed because all schools in the country were required to assess students using these tests to evaluate the student, teacher and school’s performance. A standardized test is any examination that is administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner (Popham 8). The use of these tests have not improved education in the United States because teachers teach to the test, which means that they only focus on what is going to be on the exam and do not spend time on other material; tests like the SAT which evaluate the student solely on the outcome of the test and upon the score the student is placed where “appropriate”; and that one assessment is not enough to evaluate students, teachers, principals
begun their education and the tests that are sure to come with it. The road
A never-ending issue has loomed over the head of our nation-- education. According to the Institute of Education Sciences, 63.7% of American students are below proficient in reading and 65.7% in math. In order to improve educational standards and increase student achievement, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) in 2002. Designed to increase the role of the federal government in education, it holds schools accountable based on how students perform on standardized tests. Statistics show that the average student completes about 110-115 mandatory, standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and end of twelfth grade (an average of eight tests per year). Standardized testing utilizes
The purposes of standardized tests are to instruct decision making, establish program eligibility, evaluate course goals, evaluate program goals, and examine external curriculum. When a teacher gives and assesses a standardized test, they gain information about their students that helps them realize what concepts they have learned according to the agenda for the subject at hand. If the assessment is performed in a sensible amount of time and given according to the directions, this purpose should be fulfilled; however, it is a common belief that standardized tests do not work well in establishing where a student stands in a specific curriculum. The test uses a general curriculum that is the basis for the tests
In classrooms all across America, students sit perched over their desks in the process of taking standardized tests. As the students take the tests, teachers pace nervously up and down the rows of their classroom, hoping and praying that their students can recall the information which they have presented. Some children sit relaxed at their desks, calmly filling in the bubbles and answering essay questions. These children are well prepared and equipped to handle their tests. Other children, however, sit hunched over their desks, pondering over questions, trying to guess an answer. They struggle to recall information that has been covered many times in class, but they can’t.
For the past decade, our country’s education system has reached a flat line in results. Studies show that the United States is the number one country in education spending in order to improve our results, but standardized test scores have plateaued. During President George W. Bush’s term, he initiated a program titled “No Child Left Behind.” No offense to President Bush, however his educational initiative is the most ironic title due to its produced results. So far, no state in our country has reached one hundred percent proficiency in mathematics and language arts and the system has gotten deficient and is failing the millennial generations. Education is a key component to success in our fast-paced society and our system needs to change, for
“No issue in the U.S. Education is more controversial than (standardized) testing. Some people view it as the linchpin of serious reform and improvement, others as a menace to quality teaching and learning” (Phelps). A tool that educators use to learn about students and their learning capabilities is the standardized test. Standardized tests are designed to give a common measure of a student’s performance. Popular tests include the SAT, IQ tests, Regents Exams, and the ACT. “Three kinds of standardized tests are used frequently in schools: achievement, diagnostic, and aptitude” (Woolfolk 550). Achievement tests can be used to help a teacher assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses in a
“Standardized testing has become the arbiter of social mobility, yet there is more regulation of the food we feed our pets that of the tests we give our kids ” (Robert Schaeffer quotes)
The purpose of standardized testing is to help guide the teachers teach students the basics of what they need to know in order to move ahead in school. These tests are standard for core classes in any grade but differ from state to state. For Virginia it’s SOLs (standards of learning) in Arizona it’s AIMS (Arizona’s instrument to measure standards), although the name differs the purpose it the same in all states. These tests are to measure how much the students have learned throughout the year. To help improve the results from these tests, the no child left behind act was created in 2001. The bill does this by making the states and schools more accountable for the student’s progression. It improves the academic achievements for
Every year thousands upon thousands of children, ages seven and upwards sit down to take their scheduled standardized tests. This generation has been classified as the most tested in history. 'Its progress through childhood and adolescence' has been 'punctuated by targets, key stages, attainment levels, and qualifications' ('Stalin in School' 8). Each year the government devises a new standard and then finds a way to test how each student measures up to this standard. They have come to the conclusion that the easiest way to chart the success of school reform is to follow the results of standardized testing. But rating education strictly by the numbers is the wrong way to measure a process as complex as learning,
“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.
Visualize a standardized test taken annually by millions of students in the U.S.A. that directly affects teaching methods, school budgets, and grade promotion. Presently, millions of schools are utilizing high-stakes tests to determine these major factors. The United States expects students to perform well on standardized testing, or school districts will suffer financial consequences under the No Child Left Behind Act (Au 502). This places pressure on everyone from administrators to students in a school district. Schools worldwide are stressed to succeed on these standardized tests when they only measure a fraction of a student’s intelligence. Standardized testing must be discontinued because it negatively affects school curricula,
The limitations of “standardized testing” as a rigid and narrow criterion for gauging the educational capabilities of students in public education. The criterion for standardized testing relies on narrow areas of knowledge that define a hierarchical imposition of “intelligence” testing that forces the student to perform ion a constrained academic environment. This type of testing has become a mechanized tool to reject the individual needs of the student in a linear testing methodology. The importance of a more diversified and individual style of education must address the talents of the student in relation to a broader system of education. Therefore, the problem of “one-size-fits-all” in standardized testing forces the student to take a test that generalizes educational standards in the public school system. In essence, an analysis of the individual needs of the student define the problem of a “one-size-fits-all” system of standardize testing in modern American school system.
Despite recent attempts to reform, there is no question that the United States' education system is falling behind the education systems of other developed nations. The Programme for International Student Assessment, also known as PISA, is an international organization which measures performance of high school students throughout the world (United States, Highlights from PISA iii), and the results of its most recent series of examinations have shown that high school students in the United States are desperately trailing behind their peers in the rest of the developed world (United States, Highlights from PISA 12). Recent initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act have attempted to improve the state of our deteriorating education
The No Child Left Behind Act sets the stage for standardized testing. It was issued in 2001 in hopes to benefit students academically. Under this law, states were authorized to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and in high school. The goal of this act was to make sure public school students were achieving learning goals, furthermore the tests administered were supposed to measure a student’s learning ability. Studies have only found that the test given to students are not accurately measuring their learning ability for a variety of different reasons. The No Child Left Behind Act needs to be removed, this act only makes students miserable.