Testing is Overrated Essay

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.

Although these assessments may teach kids to be better test takers, every child has a different strategy when taking a test, and for most adolescents one test defines how smart they are. In one test a myriad of issues could go on that could cause someone to be labeled as not smart enough or even too smart for the rest of their lives. Based on a test, someone is put into different classes, and classes build on top of each other, and by the time it is too late that person would have lost months if not a year of knowledge and comprehension. Then, there are those students who do not care. They feel the tests are worthless without incentive, so why should they do their best. These students’ lack of effort could result in ruined reputation for the whole school and themselves. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing stated, “a test is completely reliable if you would get exactly the same results the second time you administered it. All tests have ‘measurement error’." This means an individual's score may vary significantly from day to day due to testing conditions or the test-taker's mental or emotional state. Scores of young children and scores on subsections of tests are particularly

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

Standardized tests are unnecessary because they are excruciating to the minds of many innocent students. Each year, the tests get tougher and stricter until the students cannot process their own thoughts. The tests become torturous to the minds of those only starting in the world of tests. The students already battling in the war are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the world of uncreativity and narrowness. As the walls narrow in on them, they are lost and unable to become innovative thinkers. Moreover, the implementation of standardized tests into the public school systems of the United States of America has controversially raised two different views –the proponents versus the opponents in the battle of the effectiveness of

At this point standardized tests are very ineffective. In 2002 the No Child Left Behind Act was put into place by congress, making it mandatory for all fifty states to test their students. The tests place copious amounts of stress on the students while not clearly showing how intellectually advanced they are. Although standardized testing has many benefits, schools should should opt of testing their students.

This article, "What Do Test Scores In Texas Tell US?" by the Rand Corporation looks at the pros and cons to high stakes testing in Texas. High stakes testing was meant to improve academic scores and motivate teachers, but unintended concerns have risen. Professionals and the media question exactly how beneficial these test are, and if we should continue to use them. Texas was looked at because students had made huge strides in statewide testing. "Gains in Texas Assessment and Academic Skills (TAAS) reading and math scores for both majority and minority have been so dramatic that they have dubbed the 'Texas Miracle '" (Rand, 2000). The success was so great that Texas students were put through further test to validate that these impressive scores. Students tested on the National Assessment of Educational Process (NAEP) between 1994 and 1998. After comparing the scores for TAAS to the scores of NAEP many questions arose for the validity of statewide testing. Tables in the article show that the TAAS scores are differ greatly than those of the NAEP. Though the scores between the two test were much different Texas students who took the NAEP were higher than the U.S. average. Also, by 1998 the gap between the scores of white students and students of color got smaller. Questions about why the gap between the TAAS scores and the NAEP scores were so great were never directly answered. Suggestions were made that Texas teachers could more easily prepare students for the

Standardized testing is not made to test every student. These tests often ask one sided, bias questions. Claims have been brought against standardized tests in court due to bias. How are they supposed to measure the ability of every student when every student is different? Students learn differently and preform differently depending upon the type of test given. Some students are stronger with essay questions, some with matching, and some with true and false. Some students could not even know the material but get a multiple choice question right through process of elimination. How is this a fair way to measure knowledge? It is not fair to the students that actually study for these tests and know the information required.

“There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old "accountable" for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before,” quote Jonathan Kozol. As this quote apptly states many children are often robbed of simple childhood pleasures by standardized testing. These strenuous tests should be cut back to the absolute minimum. Standardized tests should not be required because they provide unnecessary stress, are often inaccurate because of computer and human error, and some students, particularly minorities, are at a clear disadvantage.

This is in fact not the case, there are an abundant number of alternatives to standardized assessments. Alternatives to determined how a school performs according to "Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students' Abilities" are "high school graduation rates and number of dropouts, enrollments in advanced placement and other college prep courses, college acceptance rate, and college remediation rates for recent high school graduates" (6). As previously mentioned by the research the Hampshire College performed there are also alternatives for accepting students into colleges that are not test scores. Some possible choices are essays and interviews, recommendations from mentors, and assess factors such as their community engagement and entrepreneurism. The main point is that these standardized tests can be replaced with better options of where to place schools and students on the overall

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.

Tests should not determine if you’re smart enough or capable of doing something. For example the SAT and ACT are tests that determine what university you’re capable of getting into. Most students don’t do well in tests but are very intelligent that means they’re book smart. Standardized testing affects the future of many people, for example if they’re smart and have a 4.0 gpa but get less than 1000 in the SAT, that means the student won’t get into a great

Many believe standardized test are very important to student's education. Afterall, standardized tests are one of the only ways to measure students academic ability. According to various individuals, “Standardized tests play a major role in education today, whether they are achievement tests measuring subject-specific knowledge

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.

Standardized tests should not be required because of all the time preparing for it, could just be spent on teaching more on what the grade level requires. Students begin to receive extra help when it comes to the time preparing for these test, it just starts to get them unhappy and dislike school. Standardized tests should not be required because it an extra item in school that requires more time to be prepared for and does not relate to the school, so teachers are not permitted to help a student in need.

The first rationality I have is that the tests can cause unneeded stress among young children. The stress can be caused from teachers preparing for the tests, instead of teaching what the tests are examining the students about. This means that school corporations will make sure the test networks are working, wasting roughly an hour per class, this time could be rehearsing what the test is covering. Another reason stress can be caused is because some students don’t take tests seriously. The teachers are graded from their students so if some students are not taking the tests seriously the students who work diligently are given unfair work. In truth, this is why Standardized Tests cause stress in younger children.