Standardized Tests Should Not Be The Only Determining Factor That Student Success And Ability

Standardized testing is known to improve students’ education, but is it really needed in school? Standardized testing determines whether a student is prepared for the next grade based on their test scores. While some students do great on their test others struggle a lot. Not all students are good test takers; majority of the students do good in school but struggle when it comes down to testing. While many agree that standardized testing helps improve students education, it shouldn’t be necessary in school because one test score shouldn’t determine a student’s readiness or academic level.

Standardized tests are exams that are supposed to measure a child’s academic knowledge but have long been a controversial subject of discussion. Although it is one method to see how a child is performing, is it the best method? Standardized testing can be biased or unfair, inhibit both the teacher’s and the children’s creativity and flexibility, affect funding for schools, cause untested subjects to be eliminated from the curriculum, and cause anxiety for children and teachers.

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.

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

Standardized testing has become something of a norm under the No Child Left Behind Act. It has left the student and teacher responsible in having high test scores and has forced teachers to teach directly by the curriculum. What standardized testing does do is help develop memory, but at the cost of creativity (Emanuel 9-10). This is the problem behind standardized testing is that it has become linear and obsolete (Emanuel 9-10). It has been noticed by many for example Sir Ken Robinson said,” Testing in principal is a logical way of measuring student knowledge”, but he continues by saying that, “In practice it creates a very dry learning environment”. This shows that the No Child Left Behind Act and standardized testing is not working,

One reason why standardized testing should not be used to measure students’ educational abilities is that it does not accurately reflect what students have learned in the classroom. Every student in a classroom has their own way of learning, thus they are not on the same learning level. It might take one student to slowly understand a topic in class, while the other picks up the concepts right away. Standardized tests are usually in a multiple choice format; having quick answers to superficial questions. The pressure of needing a high score on these tests leaves the student to become stressed. This results to them not performing as well and can affect their scores, positively or negatively. There are students who get good grades in class

Some would argue that standardized tests test everybody on the same level and it shows how well the students are taught by the teachers. This is true but not everybody learns on the same level and some don’t take tests very well.

One problem standardized testing imposes is that it cannot precisely measure a student’s amount of knowledge. With so many education systems and a number of teaching styles, there is no realistic way to cover the material every student has been learning. This leads to problems on the results of standardized tests. Swartz, of the National Center for Teaching Thinking said, “Most current U.S. standardized tests include only multiple-choice questions and provide no way for students to explain their thinking, So if a student answers (d) and that 's correct, it still raises the question, ‘Is he just guessing?’ And there 's no way to know,” (“Teaching Critical Thinking”). Standardized tests, especially multiple choice tests, are inefficient for measuring a student’s ability and knowledge. Clearly, multiple choice tests do not work. They cannot correctly determine how

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

Standardized testing has been around for ages, but was not widely enforced until former President Bush put into law the No Child Left Behind Act. A standardized test is a major test that is administered to a large population of students that is graded in a standard manner. Recently, parents all over the country have been opting their children out of standardized testing, and for many justifiable reasons. Standardized testing should not be mandatory due to the fact that these tests do not accurately measure a student’s intelligence, they put students in a box, and they narrow the curriculum.

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Imagine, a world where there was no more standardized testing. Standardized testing is definitely something that all schools use now. Standardized testing is traced back from “seventh-century China, when the government began administering written exams to select candidates for the civil service.”(Standardized Testing).Standardized testing in the pass to now is being used to classify students into their classes. (Standardized testing). Standardized testing should be eliminated from schools.

Standardized testing does not truly evaluate a student’s knowledge. “High schools are turning into ‘giant test-prep centers’, effectively closing off intellectual inquiry and undermining enthusiasm of learning (and teaching)” (Wallace 4). Students are now being taught in such a fashion that all

Do you feel that standardized testing has benefited the way that students learn in the classroom? Has it hindered their learning?

You may wonder, Why do we have standardized tests? They were created so that the government could keep track of how schools were performing and they wanted to see how the money they gave the schools was being used. “In 1965, as part of the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration sent extra federal funding to low-income schools, and in return asked for data to make sure the money was making an impact.”(Rizga) “Standardized tests have been a part of American . education since the mid-1800s.” (Standardized) Standardized testing has been in our lives for over 150 years and it has been used to keep track of the education level of the citizens. “The modern testing movement began with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), enacted