Standardized Testing: For Better or For Worse?

Standardized testing is suppose to benefit a student in many ways but a lot of kids don’t feel like it does. Some students have fear taking a standardized test. Those kids who make good grades but get usually get nervous before tests, normally struggle while taking their exam. Many times it causes students to stress and feel overwhelmed distracting them from their grades. (Ms. Moore), a teacher in Ohio believes that, “you don’t teach kids to perform well on standardized tests, you teach kids to learn, to enjoy learning and to not treat it as such a negative. When did learning in America become a negative?” (Analysis; Pros & Cons). Though education isn’t always fun, it shouldn’t cause students to stress over a test score. It also makes students give up once they know their test score is low.

“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”, I slammed the snooze bar for the final time in a sleep-deprived fit of rage. “5:45” The red numbers illuminated the dark bedroom and I am hit with the depressing realization that the first day of school has begun. Staying in bed any later would award me with a traffic jam and tardy slip, so I dash out the door.

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

When people think of the education system, most can say that there are some problems, though they might not be able to pinpoint what needs to change first. If you ask most teachers, they will say that the first thing that needs to be changed in the schooling system to help the students more is the standardized testing. They will say that while it can be helpful it has a lot of faults and needs to be updated or changed to help its students. Standardized testing has often been a topic for discussion, between parents and people in the schooling system. It seems that a lot of people either hate standardized testing for not giving every child a chance to succeed, or love it for being a fair way to test whether a child knows what they need to know at their age. There have been many articles, books, and documentary’s debating on whether or not standardized testing is doing more harm then good. There was a comic made that shows the brutality and bluntness of what standardized testing is really like. Standardized Testing causes too much stress by putting unfair expectations on teens and doesn’t give every single student the chance to succeed.

Each year high school students from around the country take the SAT or ACT. The ACT and SAT are both standardized test used by colleges to determine the knowledge of a student and predict what their performance will be in their first year of college. An immense amount of pressure is put on student to receive certain scores in order to obtain scholarships and admission into college. Even just one point on a student’s score can determine if they will be accepted into their dream college. However, the results from standardized tests, such as the ACT and SAT, are often inaccurate. Because of this one’s knowledge and academic ability are misrepresented, and they are denied certain opportunities. Standardized tests such as the ACT and the SAT

One of the biggest topics in the educational world is standardized tests. All fifty states have their own standards following the common core curriculum. There are many positives and negatives that go with the standardized tests. A standardized test is any type of “examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner” (Popham, 1999). These standardized tests are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Schools use achievement tests to compare students.

Growing up in Chesapeake every student is forced to take a standardized test at the end of every class they take. Standardized testing has been a part of the educational system for so long that everyone is just accustomed to taking these tests or giving them out. Standardized testing does not just effect the students but it also effects the teachers. Chesapeake School Board should get rid of standardized testing in all grade levels because of different learning style, it limits the teachers to what they can teach and poor test scores.

If we don’t do well on testing, then we’re going to lose funding, which means we’re going to lose teachers. So teachers are being pressured to teach the children to pass the test.” (Fountain).

Even though there are many downsides to standardized testing there are still viable reasons why they are still being used today. One of the main reasons includes the easy and quick access of testing students. Standardized testing allows schools to quickly access a large amount of students at one time. This is also one of the cheapest ways to tests such a large crowd due to machinery that grades which results in low tests costs for students. These tests also help by setting a national curriculum for all high school teachers to teach in schools. “It provides guidelines for curriculum. Standardized tests give teachers a structure of what needs to be taught. This helps keep classroom material consistent across the country” (“Pros and Cons of

Like Bert Lance one said, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” This is the way many people feel about standardized testing. To them the tests appear to be a reliable and harmless way to measure students’

There is this idea of how if the teacher’s students do great on the test it means that they are great teachers, which is not necessarily the case. Columbia University states, “Standardized testing causes many teachers to only “teach to the tests,”. This practice can hinder a student’s overall learning potential. With the stakes getting higher and higher for teachers, this practice will only continue to increase. The sad reality is that it fosters an atmosphere that is boring and lacks creativeness. Teachers have such pressure to get their students ready for these exams that they neglect to teach students skills that go beyond the tests.” With the lack of teachers actually using their skills to teach the curriculum and the only thing they teach is how to take tests, school will not be where students would want to learn, and they will eventually drop out in the future. Also teaching tests will not help students in life in any way, especially without the teacher and student

Standardized tests have caused disagreements all across the U.S. According to http://standardizedtests.procon.org/, though they don’t improve most student achievements, it does improve positive effects in 93% of students. Hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents around the U.S are very against Standardized Tests. The teachers opt against the tests for the simple fact of they are evaluated from the results of their students. Parents opt because the tests end up stressing out there children. Standardized testing teaches students to take tests. The average student takes about 113 tests from kindergarten to 12th grade.

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

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).

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.