Teach For America Reflection

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he is fed for a lifetime. In today’s society, education is very similar to this statement. Schools are commanded to teach aspects of life that only benefit the student for an end-of-the-year test. Students are not taught what is to come in the life after school. Because of the poor quality in education today, the emphasis on standardized test has become overwhelming.

While a few standardized tests over a student’s school career can be helpful to make sure students are on track and teachers are educating their students, the United States education system has far too many standardized tests. The U.S should reduce the number of tests given to students each year. The current amount of testing stresses students and forces teachers to “teach to the test”. Standardized testing has not and will not improve the American school

Getting an education is the main goal for everyone, although it is easy to obtain there are some obstacles to it. One of the main obstacles students face at the beginning of their education is standardized tests. Schools have started to adopt this type of tests as their main way to evaluate students’ intelligence and teachers’ effectiveness to educate the students. The way students used to learn has changed, in order to get them ready for the tests they have to spend much of the school time preparing for it instead of learning something they can use in their future life. According to Bruce Jacobs in No Child Left Behind's Emphasis on 'Teaching to the Test' Undermines Quality Teaching, a 2007 study by the University of Maryland teachers were put in much pressure and had thoughts to teach the test […]. This shows that teachers have also been affected by standardized tests in a way they have more pressure to make students pass. Having teachers ‘teach the test’ means their way to educate has been corrupted. In most cases when teachers’ ability to educate has been changed leads them to practice methods not convenient for scholars. One of these methods is memorization, in Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea by Hani Morgan describes how students start to adapt to an “inferior type of learning, based on memorization and recall students gain when teachers

Only recently with the addition of the Common Core Standardized Tests, students are being faced with more tests than ever. A typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and 12th grade (Study says standardized...). In my opinion, the complexities of these tests are inclining to a degree where they are unreachable to the average student. These tests are an unreliable measure of performance with unfair instruction time. Student anxiety and stress has become so awful that the Standford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do in case a student vomits on the test. While the tests are there for students skill-measurement scores, they aren’t the only one’s who need to prepare for the exam. Teachers are equally pressured by their overhead figures to insure student’s score well. Just like the students, standardized tests are an imprecise measure of teacher performance, yet they are used to reward and punish teachers. Teachers are being required to a more progressive teaching style with emphasize on reflective learning. The effects of this are being nicknamed “drill and kill” test prep. Developing a corresponding curriculum prior to these assessments can be tricky because of the ambiguous content the Common Core requires. A considerable majority of these tests are given to students online. These already pricey tests come at an expensive cost for schools. An underlining problem people are concerned about is declining student scores being used as an excuse to close public schools that already can’t afford for the computers to take the test, and open more voucher

However, our focus is so fixated on the child’s cognitive growth and performance on these standardized tests, that I feel we lose sight of our mission to also help the child develop socially, emotionally, linguistically and ethically. I think this is largely because a school is viewed as successful when it’s students perform well. But, the quality of an education cannot be measured by how well the child is performing on standardized assessments. All it demonstrates is that the child is learning what he or she is being taught. But is it a good education, and are children learning what they should? That would depend on one’s definition, and according to Dennis Littky, “our country does not have a common definition of learning” (2015, p. 159). I think that the goal of education should be to teach students to learn how to think in a way that is translated in to whatever profession they choose. For the most part, I agree with Littky’s definition of learning. He writes, “Learning is to problem solve and think critically, to analyze and interpret different perspectives, to be creative and use the world as a tool to innovate, to be proficient in reading, writing, and math” (2015, p. 159), I think that learners should be able to demonstrate these skills - but I think that there should be an overarching emphasis on the moral and civic character growth of our

Standardized tests are hurting our educational future. They were implemented for reasons such as evaluating teachers, schools, districts, and so forth, and to determine if students should advance to a higher grade. What standardized tests are actually doing is taking over students’ education. Different levels of the educational system are continuously requiring more tests to assess various objectives, without any evidence that these tests are benefiting students. The effects these tests are having on the education are crippling. Teachers are under a surmountable amount of pressure for their students to achieve high scores, since their careers are in the hands of them. Teachers are reverting to unethical practices to protect their careers. Valuable education time is lost with preparing for and taking of these tests. Students could advance their education further and quicker with less preparation and tests. These tests are not an accurate assessment of students’ abilities since they only assess few subjects. Comparing students’ on only a portion

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

Jeannie Fulbright was right when she said, “If the purpose for learning is to score well on a test, we’ve lost sight of the real reason for learning.” (teacherswithapps.com). The real reason for learning and a good education is one that will not only bring success in life, but one that will bring joy and wisdom. A life where one is not curious and eager to learn new information is a dull one. Schools should be striving to make their students believe in this and the power that knowledge brings. Instead, schools are so caught up in preparing their students for tests that what they don't realize is that they are turning students against education. Students want to be asked about their views on world that they will one day control and the impact they hope to make in their lifetime, but their education is so driven towards scoring well on a test that they are never able to fully speak their minds. Education is becoming a haunting thing to these young minds, and that is all due to standardized testing and the effects it brings. Most people go to grade school for twelve years of their lives. Those twelve years are their youth, a time that is irreplaceable. Youth should be driven by wonder, hopes, and aspirations, not the memorization of the quadratic formula or the periodic table of elements. It's not the teacher's fault that the lives of students revolve around these

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

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).

There are many causations for failure in the education system. For example, rising in poverty levels, teacher quality, tenure polices, and as well as THE USE OF STANDARDIZED TESTING (Background). Adversaries claim that the use of standardized testing can encourage a shortened curriculum and emphasize teaching the test material instead of emphasizing the basic knowledge of subjects. Furthermore, these tests are known for being neither fair nor objective and that their use will promote in a narrowing of curriculum. The excessive testing will undermine America’s ability to produce visionaries and critical thinkers. Therefore, leading to the claim that shortened curriculum due to the teaching of materials of standardized tests is the causation of the weakness in the education system.

When a student has the ability to pursue classes that interest them, combined with teachers that enable the students to understand more and push themselves, the students will be more inclined to continue to go to school and find a topic that they are passionate about, that they would then hopefully be able to make a career out of. Students that are surrounded by negativity and a setting that distracts from the importance of learning and pressures the student is one that ultimately reduces the output of education that the politicians are so concerned with. Students can tell when they are being taught for a test. In NJ, all the way from the NJASK through PARCC testing through the SAT/ACT, it is obvious that there is an underlying issue in the education system. From 3rd Grade everything becomes a means to an end. What happens, though, if what a student is capable of and what they are good at is not on a test? Those students can be left behind or thought lesser of. Frustration sets in when a person becomes bored as well as when they are not properly understanding the material. Albert Einstein stated that “If you judge a fish based on how well it climbs a tree it will always feel stupid.” Standardized testing is good for creating a basis of knowledge and a starting point for the school system to make sure that each citizen can have a basic level of understanding, but there are many people that are not wired for standardized testing and traditional education. So many people have so many different skill sets, innate and developed. Those that can paint and have a vision like Picasso may not show this on their testing. This is the same as how those that are taking high level calculus and then the math section of the SAT. The questions are not the same. The thinking is meant to be misleading. This does not provide a fair

Students are stressed. But, what is the goal of these tests? Are we trying to make students compete with one another to see who gets the higher score? Or are we preparing them for life outside of school? Maybe at one time these tests were used to measure how well the future leaders of our countries were learning, but now it is no longer like that. These tests seem to show no post-school value except to find the most successful kids and give them scholarships to college. Going along with this, everyone, depending on their grade, is required to take the same exact test. Despite their different ways of thinking, students are grouped together and the ones who are different are “wrong” simply because they were unable to learn it due to the way they were taught. Holding every single student to the same standards avoids the fact that everyone has a different mindset and each person may excel in different subjects. This poses a question: when will the system change? Students are held to such enormous pressure that when they meet the standards, they are convinced they’re stupid, and I struggle with this, too. However, it would be easier if all of the intimidation encountered when we are testing would just be withdrawn and students can be able to take a test, try their best, and if they don’t succeed, they can continue to work hard because, after all, a test shouldn’t determine how

“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.

A very current and ongoing important issue happening within the education system is standardized testing. A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a calculated, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students might perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT’s and the ACT’s. The SAT and the ACT attempt to estimate how well high school students will perform in college. But standardized test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use: California Achievement Tests,