Standardized Testing In Schools

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.

Additionally, Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” There are different forms of intelligence that go beyond what our school system measures. Students are not a unit to be measured, and students cannot be assigned a numerical value to identify their intelligence. Students are diverse—they learn at different speeds, and they learn in different ways. Focusing solely on test scores is hurting our students and deviating away from building our society on success and excellence. Critics are slowly realizing the problems associated with standardized tests—they create anxiety, they are extremely biased, and they do not measure the ability to think deeply.

Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.

It's 8 A.M. on a Saturday, and masses of students around the United States wake up and head to their testing sites in order to take the SAT. This is a common occurrence that happens multiple times a year, but it raises the question as to how seriously should society take these tests and other standardized testing, such as the Regents examinations in New York State. The answer to this is obvious, clearly these exams, and all standardized tests, must be taken seriously, due to the fact they provide vital information for colleges such as which students are the best, they provide ample data for high schools and state governments to prove that the academic standards are being upheld, and they also provide useful information to various institutions

Three times a year, hours spent testing, and for what? Standardized Tests. Some school staff members, or family, believe that Standardized Tests can increase the students’ educations. Students can say otherwise. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that Standardized Tests can be substandard for students. The evidence supporting this claim is that the tests can cause stress in young children, it’s overall expensive, and it takes away teaching time. I hope from reading this essay you will also believe Standardized Tests should be cut from schools programs.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein, a German-born physicist. This quote is referring perfectly to standardized testing by saying something along the lines of, you can’t judge a student’s ability to perform well in school by giving him/her a standardized test. Standardized testing is wrong just because not all students can perform well on a test, including myself. Administration often want to take the easiest way out to collect the data they need to place students in classes instead placing them according to something else; or in such way that is fair to all students. Education is a big part of our nation today with one of the biggest components being standardized testing, which does not accurately measure full capabilities of students from elementary on up to the high school level.

Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it’s stupid.” Recently, there has been discussion about whether the method of standardized testing is best for our education system. There are a lot of flaws that come with the system of testing. Opposers argue that with all of the flaws, the testing significantly holds American citizens back from greater potential to success. Standardized testing weakens America’s education system, because it can cause teachers to “teach to the test”, does not truly measure intelligence or abilities, and cannot always reflect what a student has learned.

Standardized testing takes valuable time away from students to learn about lessons that will actually be useful in the future. They are expected to remember criteria learned in middle school and/or grade school, and the more time spent on trying to equalize the students, the more creativity is being taken away from them. Creativity is what makes people individual and unique, why would we want to live in a world where everyone is alike and boring? For example, between 20-25 hours in the entire school year for the average eighth grader is spent preparing and taking standardized tests, according to the Council of the Great City Schools. With all the time spent on studying for those unavailing exams, teachers could be educating students on how to survive in the real world, and guide them to be themselves through inventive activities.

“Standardized test are not even necessary because it barely shows what we already don’t know. It has proven to just be a waste of money and even teachers will tell students that there is no need for the testing” (Jouriles). Plenty of needs for the state can be taken care of if the state would let standardized test go and distribute the test money to other needs. The test are rigged anyway therefore, students cheat because the curriculum is too hard. “The performances from the assessments are not great and that is mainly because the tests are not taken seriously and the information is not relevant to what has been taught” (Jouriles). With that being said standardized testing is neither worth the budget nor importance of education.

Over time standardized testing has become more and more popular. Standardized tests are commonly used in schools today. Tests are a way of checking off, and creating requirements in high school. These tests are helpful in some way but are mostly hurtful in the education of students. Parents and teachers have begun questioning if the excessive amounts of testing are really necessary for their students. They take up class time and prohibit innovation. Standardized tests are said to be a way of determining intelligence but are not always successful or helpful in teaching students.

“A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and "caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning..." The standardized tests only measures the student proficiency at the time of the testing and not throughout their life. Teachers only prepare students for the exams and not future career goals. Most instruction time is taught for teaching the standardized test and not common knowledge. “It encourages a simplistic way of thinking in which there are only right and wrong answers, which doesn't apply in real-world situations. The format is also biased toward male students, who studies have shown adapt more easily to the game-like point scoring of multiple-choice questions.” [77] The test pressure beginners from right to wrong answer choices and not circumstances in real life. Students need to know information that go far beyond the classroom. The exams only give children two way problems and not what is what happening in real life. No Child Left behind Act and Common Core are great examples on how changes have been made for exams. Common Core are used in most schools, since standardized tests are being taken out. Standardized tests adds more stress on students and they need to focus on other important objectives that will be more beneficial to them in the future. According to

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend it's whole life believing its stupid.” This quote, credited to Albert Einstein, is a perfect example of why comparing students to each other is not an accurate test of intelligence. Standardized testing should not be mandatory, because they cause unnecessary stress for teachers and students; limit standards and undermine students’ success in other, equally important aspects; and drastically narrows the school's curriculum.

Although standardized testing has been a partial component of many schools’ curriculums since the 1800’s, its popularity rapidly increased after the “No Child Left Behind Act” was passed in 2002. This Act stated that from that point onward, it was necessary for children in all fifty states to complete some form of a standardized examination annually. But are these tests genuinely an efficient and reliable way of testing a student's knowledge? . Due to the the pressures of having to perform perfectly on standardized examinations, many children and teachers feel the need to game the system, making the results of these tests inaccurate. Not only are the examination results

However, the implementation of standardized tests overall is flawed because as test that are not supposed to take up student’s study or homework time, they often still do since the teacher’s value how the school’s performance will reflect on them. Hence, why I believe that standardized tests should be abolished or at the very least reformed. First off, these tests should not determine federal funds for schools or effect graduation as I experienced which will hopefully prevent teachers and schools from feeling the need to put more pressure on student’s and assure that their lessons will not revolve around what is on the test. Standardized tests should also be given more than once over the course of a school year to give a more accurate evaluation on students and show their progress over the year which might also provide better evaluations for teachers. If changes like these are made, I really believe that it would be a win for both you and students across America as these tests will give better evaluations on what you want to know and help bridge the gap how students in lower grade levels are taught versus how they will be taught in higher education

Standardized tests have been around for as long as I can remember. They are used as measures of how students are compared to one another, or of how much they know of a certain curriculum they were supposed to have learned throughout the school year. These tests are being used to make major decisions about students, such as moving to the next grade level, graduating from high school, and even going in to college. Millions of students across America had to repeat classes because of the way standardized tests are used to pass or fail students. Although these tests require students to learn all this information until the end of the semester, it is wrong to allow just a single test to decide whether an entire semester’s work will be rewarded or will they simply fail.