Standardize Testing
Where are we headed as our future generations prepare to take over and lead our nation? Will our nation’s graduating students be competent and equipped to lead us into a successful future? How do we determine if we are preparing them to be intelligent enough to be successful in this world? What is intelligence and success? And is that all it takes to lead a successful nation? It has been proven that student performance and higher grades can dramatically increase the economic growth of a nation, but is this all we need? Has Washington (Govenement) put in place the best method for establishing a new generation to lead our country? Or should we ask, do we want Washington to be taking the lead of our educational system?
Thesis: The effects of standardized testing have negatively impacted students across the United States. High Stakes testing has led to a decrease in student motivation, high retention rate, and a notable change in early dropout rates.
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
Since childhood it has been taught that education is key to being a successful and productive person in today’s day and age, but exactly how children should be educated is being debated heavily throughout the United States. I have decided to do my senior project on standardized testing (common core testing) as a way to shed light on this broken system. Standardized testing has been created in order to compare test scores around the country and decide exactly what needs to be taught in schools.While this may seem like a good idea on paper, the animation of this in the real world has been a complete disaster. Lately, students have been bombarded with standardized tests and it has been negatively affecting their education. In a quote from one of the most influential females of our generation, “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.” (Michelle Obama). Now in this quote the first lady is saying that people should not be judged based off of one test that is going to determine the way that they are being educated, which is exactly what is
At a glance scatter plots show whether a relationship exists between two sets of data. This data will determine correlations between students taking the SAT and ACT. Because this scatter plot is falling from left to right it has a negative slope, so therefore there is a negative correlation between these two sets of data. Although these points are falling, it is not a clear negative relationship since the clustered points are not in a straight line. Therefore, this relationship is a weak, negative relationship.
[establish credibility] If you were like me, which I can see everyone here is, you were told to bring two number two pencils, an eraser, and go to your assigned classroom unless the test was taken as a class in the gymnasium.
Evaluating individual students through standardized tests is a poor means and should be replaced with performance-based assessments. An average student spends most of their early life inside a classroom, submitting to a sequence of tests and preparation for further exams to finally graduate and continue with further education, constantly struggling and striving for the highest marks. Through a strict series of standardized tests however, students instead form the idea that there is a single answer for all of the problems that face our world. You are taught not to think logically or creatively at all, but to mindlessly memorize. As a student, you lose interest in the different disciplines you
Our group is interested in discovering if benefits exist from the two educational policies, “Every Student Succeeds Act” and the recent “No Child Left Behind Act”. Specifically, we want to know if standardized testing is the best way possible to determine if the federal government is providing high quality education to our nation. We know that standardized testing is a major component of both these policies, and we want to understand how standardized testing works within these policies. Furthermore, we want to discover if an alternate method to determine educational success exists within these certain educational policies.
I definitely agree with Judge Jerry Baxter’s decision to incarcerate the teachers accused of cheating on standardized testing. Nine out of ten teachers who were brought before Judge Baxter were sentenced anywhere between one and seven years in jail. These, so called, “educators” were accused of giving students answers and erasing and changing answers on tests after they were turned in. Overall, the behavior of these teachers showed poor moral conduct and most likely ended up “ruining” their students education.
In the commentary ‘The Value of Standardized Testing” (2013), Dr. Gail Gross, an educator specialized in curriculum and instruction, asserts that despite the influx of negative reviews, standardized testing has a positive impact on student performance, curriculum evaluation, and education integrity. Gross develops her implication by utilizing a three-pronged argumentative structure to analyze both the short term and long term advantages that standardized tests have on student growth, both individually and collectively. The author’s purpose is to persuade the readers to transform their opinions about the subject and emphasize the importance of these assessments on a student’s success in school in order to respond to and criticize an article
One mother had a very bad scare with her nine year old son. She received a letter from her son’s third grade teacher about how her son failed the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test). It also mentioned that he had to go to summer school for reading classes and had to retake the test again. She got the results back said he failed it once again. He knew he failed it and it made him very upset. She told him not to worry about it, the results would get here in a week. He failed both the tests by one point. One day she was calling him to come eat and he wouldn't answer. She didn't think anything of it, she thought he was just playing and wasn't listening. But when she called him again and he didn't respond, she had a feeling something wasn't
How can a test improve your intelligence? And improve the public education system, standardized testing is not an effective way to improve public education.Standardized tests are unnecessary in the United States It does not cater to students of every background in relationships to body ability, race,class and also non english speakers
Academic demand on adolescents is on the rise. The future of America, the children, is burdened with standards too difficult to satisfy. From Kindergarten to senior year of High School, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 impacted lives of many students by offering equal opportunity to education. It was reauthorized in 2001 and is now known as The No Child Left Behind Act . The concept of this act focuses on the idea that schools will held accountable if a student is not able to perform well academically (Klein). However, it is ultimately a failure because the pressure for students to perform well academically transcends to a backfire . Each state has its own standards, but with the Common Core there is a nationwide set of
Alfie Kohn states in the book “The more we learn about standardized testing, the more likely we are to be appalled. And the more appalled we are, the more inclined we will be to do what is necessary to protect our children.” Kohn discusses how fixated the education system is on grades and test scores, and that standardized testing should be eliminated from schools. He discusses the experiences he has had with standardized testing as a former teacher. Alfie Kohn continues by stating that many of the standardized tests used in school systems now were not meant to test teaching and learning, standardized testing is “damaging” to students who do not have equal opportunities as others, and there are a vast majority of other solutions to better
A lot of public school teachers want one thing to make their school year better and that would be less testing (UCSD Guardian, 2015). When I was in high school I always hated tests; even now I have anxiety before every test. There are so many tests from quizzes, to chapters tests, exams to sats. " The average student will take 112 standardized tests between preschool and high school graduation, spending as much as 25 hours a year testing" (Kamenetz 2015). Adding that up means that 325 hours are spent from kindergarten up equaling 13.54 full days of testing. Somehow testing has become the only means of finding out how children are doing in class. As a preschool teacher who can't give bubble tests to three year olds, I find it hard to believe that
Dating back to the mid-1800’s, standardized testing has become the be-all and end-all solution in determining a student’s academic outlook. Originally designed to measure mere scholastic knowledge, standardized tests, such as the Scholastic Intellectuality Measure and Purposeful Likelihood Exam (SIMPLE), have expanded the horizons for quantifying a student’s future socioeconomic stature, qualifying their dominant personality traits, constructing appropriate social peers, and deriving accurate career configurations for optimal societal benefit. SIMPLE applies advanced modus operandi and a modernized approach to testing in order to construct a dynamic portfolio of student prospect. A twenty first century innovation in standardized testing, SIMPLE creates an unparalleled schooling experience, student individuality, and real-world success.