Testing Ourselves And The World Around Us

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

Third, while schools continue to be accountable for student progress, that progress is no longer measured merely by state core testing results. The new law allows the states to consider a broader view for evaluating schools. There are four academic factors that must be considered, including: (1) Reading and math test scores; (2) English-language proficiency test scores; (3) High school graduation rates; and (4) A state-chosen academic measure for grade schools and middle schools (Understood Team, n.d.). These

B. “ It is the measurement used to hold districts, schools, and states accountable for student performances under the Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act”.

The Common Core State Standards are considered to be a high-quality group of academic standards. Before the standards were developed, it seemed as if the progress of the students in the United States was remaining stagnant and that America students were falling behind their international peers. The blame for this setback has fallen on the fact that standards are not consistent and from state-to-state students are required to know different things at different grade levels. As a result students are not graduating with the same set of skills (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2014).

Common Core State Standards is being heard throughout the education world. Many cringe when the words are spoken and many fight to support what the words stand for. Common Core was introduced in 2009 by state leaders. Common Core State Standards were developed to prepare children for the business world or the reality after grade school. “The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, also known as ELA” (About the Standards, n.d.). The goals for the standards outline what students should know before leaving his or her current grade level. “The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live” (About the Standards, n.d.). This is an ambitious goal, but with much support can be accomplished. According to Common Core State Standards Initiative (n.d.) The Common Core has been adopted by forty-two states already and is accompanied by District of Columbia and Department of Defense Education Activity. Common Core was developed to improve the academics in society’s schools. Academics in the past years have not been successful and the United States has fallen behind international education. “One root cause has been an uneven patchwork of academic standards that vary from state to state and do not agree on what students should know and be able to do at each

Forty Percent of high school graduates are currently taking remedial courses. "The goal of the new standards and tests is to improve on these abysmal stats." States have varied in how quickly and aggressively they have implements the CCSS*. Reading score have improved by 1.1 points since 2011 (Loveless). Arne Duncan, United States Secretary of Education and parent, has stated that "American Schools are changing, because the world is changing." The positive claims for the common core include that it represents a set of smarter standards, implies a student centered teaching and can level the playing field for many students (Strauss). Tracy Scott, South Dakota High School English and Spanish teacher in a personal interview declared that "Anytime there is a focus on curriculum, it is important to have a focus, CC is a good focus. Yeah." On November 29th, 2010, the SD Board of Education moved to adopt the Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards). The Common Core entitles standards to

For many grades and levels, the standards are too progressive. Performance stakes are being raised for students everywhere. Since the year 2007, the standards were introduced and developed

These standards were developed by educators from all educational facets to realign curriculum taught in the classroom, while keeping in mind, college and job trainer expectations. According to the writers “Forty five states voluntarily adopted these benchmarks in math, writing, and literacy.” Community and business leaders are also supporting these efforts because they recognize the significant role education plays in a strong competitiveness within the workforce. Although educators and businesses support the reform, state legislatures have failed to back improvements for various reasons which are unfounded. The writers insist that political rhetoric must not hinder students’ achievements of college

The Presidents, who signed into action all of these federally mandated acts, did so in an effort to bring America’s education systems up to par with the systems of other countries, in order to remain economically competitive on a national level in a global economy. Despite all of the benefits that may have come from these acts, some cannot overlook the fact that they came from the federal government. One opinion is state or local officials should have full governance over educational affairs. Although committees, not funded by the federal government, have attempted to make changes to the school system in the past, none have had quite the nationwide impact as the authors of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is the work of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association and the work of representatives from forty-eight states, two territories, and the

The “Common Core” is a proposed set of newly design methods in academic standards in today’s subjects like Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and English / Language Arts courses. In about forty-eight states, this new academic implementation has replaced the old teaching methods to show a gain in the ability for students to be on the same path in every state. The primary focus for Common Core is to measure a fair and accurate way for student achievement for graduation regardless of the child’s state they live in. Well, at first the adopted Common Core standards demonstrated little to no problems once established however, today it has become widely controversial. This research paper will demonstrate this issue

“In 1995, Minnesota fourth graders placed below average for the United States on an international math test” (Ripley, 2013, p. 73). Two years after, Minnesota used international benchmarks to create and update their math standards. In 2007, students from Minnesota were performing as well as students in Japan. One major contributor of the math success story of Minnesota is they made their education system stronger by creating a set of clear and targeted standards. This allowed all students to learn the same content, there was less math objectives so teachers could spend enough time teaching one concept, and teachers only had to follow one set of standards opposed to state and local

The issue of creating national standards has been debated for years long before the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers met to develop a plan for creating Common Core standards in 2009 (“Common Core”). The initiative gives states a uniform set of goals for student academic achievement and ‘College and Career readiness’ (Boychuk, Mathis). The Common Core initiative would change the way students take standardize tests in hopes to make them more competitive both globally, and in their higher education. The development to design a new test that the Common Core requires will take time. The two main groups that use federal money to design common-core tests are the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), have worked for nearly four years on their tests (Gewertz). PARCC spokesman David Connerty-Marin states, “There’s a significant difference between this test and tests states typically purchase, “because the PARCC’s test is “Built from scratch” for the common core (qtd. In Gewertz). The question of how the tests are aligned with the common core will not be determined until the study is

An assessment, conducted by an assistant professor of education and his associates at University of Southern California, showed that the American test scores were very low compared to international standards (Porter, Polikoff, & Smithson, 2009). An assessment conducted in 2010 by Andrew Porter, dean at the University of Pennsylvania, showed the differences between the Common Core and the current state standards. Through his study, he concluded that Common Core standards improve a student’s performance in mathematics but not in English and language arts. The report also states that “the Common Core standards are also different from the standards of countries with higher student achievement” (Porter, McMaken, Hwang,& Yang). This differs from the information on the Common Core website, which states “ standards from top-performing countries played a significant role in the development of the math and English language arts/literacy standards.” (corestandards.org)

If someone was to ask you “how do you define student achievement?” what would your answer be? Would you say student achievement is measured by state achievement tests? Or would you say that student achievement is too complex a subject to be objectively measured? There are many important skills students must be taught, and we need a way to effectively measure if they are in fact learning those skills. However, standardized tests cannot effectively show the learning of all students, especially those that are not good test takers. And of those skills that are tested, there are an endless number of arguably more important skills that aren’t being valued because they cannot be calculated. Furthermore,

countries of the world. National standards in math, science, and history have all been published, and have influenced many different states, and their schools, to change and somewhat conform curriculum. These standards are designed to promote the improvement of school standards, make school districts more equal, and make it easier to see where we are as a country in regards to education of young people. Some, however, feel that these national standards, though voluntary, may bring schools which are already thriving down to the minimum level suggested. They also fear that these standards will allow local governments to become lazy in funding and in concern for the schools. Regardless