The Bandwagon Summary

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

Standardized testing has been around since the early 1900’s. Today, it determines a high school student’s future. Every year juniors in high school start to prepare months in advance for the SAT’s and ACT’s. Along with the test itself, comes stress that is not necessary. The debate of standardized tests defining a student’s academic ability or not has become a recent popular controversial topic. Many colleges and universities are starting to have test optional applications because they are realizing that a single test score does not demonstrate the knowledge of a student. There is more value in a student that should rule an acceptance or rejection. In the article, “SAT Scores Help Colleges Make Better Decisions” Capterton states, “The SAT has proven to be valid, fair, and a reliable data tool for college admission” (Capterton). Capterton, president of the College Board, believes that the SAT’s and ACT’s should be used to determine a student’s acceptance because it is an accurate measure. What Capterton and deans of admissions of colleges and universities don’t know is the abundant amount of resources upper class families have for preparation, the creative talents a student has outside of taking tests, and the amount of stress they put on a 17 year old.

Standardized testing has diminished the true intention of schooling, for it “deliberately orchestrate[s] [an] assault on public education” (Ravitch 106). In an ideal world, students would look forward to receiving a diverse education; however, the current craze on standardized testing does not allow anything close to learning diversities. During a budget cut, a school’s first thought is to reduce “the non tested subject[s]”, which means everything besides math and reading (Ravitch 106). State required tests target the mathematic and reading subjects intensely; therefore, why should one teach anything else? “[F]ederal policies value only test scores”, hence the enthusiasm of schooling institutions

Einstein once said, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Likewise, if a poor test-taker is judged by their SAT score, they could be forced to attend an inadequate institute of higher education. For decades, the SAT has been “the test” that makes or breaks a student's chances of getting into their top college. Generally, the privileged populace do well, but minorities and women do not come out as strong and are therefore limited to college choice. The SAT has proven to be an unsuitable, biased method for predicting success of students in college.

The use of standardized examinations have long been debated in American society. In fact, the last several years have seen an immense shift from the prioritization of standardized testing to more holistic measurements of student achievement. Despite this shift, many school districts across the nation and college/university entrance requirements still place a significant, if not pivotal, emphasis on test-taking and standardized exam results. Throughout this paper, I will explore 1) the history of standardized testing, 2) arguments for and against its practice, as well as 3) situate the consequences of its use in one of the three philosophical goals of schooling. All of this will subsequently paint an investigation into the purpose of schooling in American society.

For many years, standardized tests have been a pillar of college admissions. Students are persuaded to take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT) because colleges believe the scores can predict an applicant’s academic success after high school. However, an increasing number of colleges have made reporting test scores optional due to inconsistencies with the tests, many of which have been emphasized by students. These inconsistencies and other problems with test distribution have led to increasing demands for standardized testing to be reformed or become optional in the admissions process. Standardized testing should be eliminated as a criterion for college applicants because the tests have made education less significant, have made scores vary among students with similar academic abilities, and have not contributed a noticeable improvement to children’s intelligence.

However, just because the test is popular and widely used doesn’t indicate that it is a valid predictor of college success (Atkinson). The excessive utilization of standardized tests in no manner implies or suggests a higher accomplishment. The essentials of this debate are easily comprehensible: Standardized tests are not a high-quality predictor of college success.

In 2011, Jen Wang was finishing up her freshman year at Connecticut College. As a young girl growing up in New Jersey, Jen took her first SAT when she was in the sixth grade, long before other students her age would even start to think about college. Jen said that test preparations for standardized tests, like the SAT, took up most of her free time that could have been used to do other things (Billy). The SAT’s early intent was to open doors of higher education to students without traditional credentials, but now this test is held at high esteem, the biggest indicator of college success (Mulugetta). Although standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT are used to “level the playing field” for students across the country, these tests add little

Many students throughout the American education system struggle due to the fact that they have to take a standardized test. But, this struggle differs for each student, some are too lazy to take them while others are having difficulty performing well on these tests. As a student who learned English as a second language, I could relate with the people who are having trouble performing well on standardized tests. When I was in high school there was nothing more frightening than Standardized tests. There was a lot of emphasize on these tests and they had the power to determine my future in the means of deciding which colleges I could attend. But, I wasn’t alone in this matter, not all students perform to their potential on Standardized tests. No matter how hard I tried to study for these tests, I was just not doing as well as my class mates. It made me feel like I was beneath all my other class mates and I thought they were intellectually superior. But, I met other like me who were not good at taking test and didn’t perform well on these

Misinformation, false and inaccurate information, can not only affect one’s bias but future poor decisions about consequential matters. Many of today’s spread of misinformation derives not only from the reader’s interpretation of the given bias and rhetoric within the sources, but the afterward outspread of this information. In the case of standardized testing, media often portrays it as an unnecessary and overwhelming tool used to equally assess the student population in core subjects. But, the media never shines the light on those who rely on the tests to excel in their classes. In “SAT Scores Helps Colleges Make Better Decisions, Gaston Caperton of the U.S. News and Report argues that SATs indeed gives colleges administrators a fair field

Throughout history, Americans excel in pronounced innovations for society. An important part of American culture comes from its education system. Large sums of American citizens attend public schools in order to prepare themselves for their careers and to better our society. This being said, schools play a crucial element in developing citizens, and should be a top priority for our society. Initial standardized tests were introduced to assess student performance, over the past two decades, however the school system has become consumed with endless testing. Some of these tests dubbed as “Do or die tests”, due to the vast impact the success or failure of a single test on an individual student. The issue isn’t the test themselves, but how much

Higher education can help people improve their social class and income. As the core reading The Lesson by Toni Bambara, Miss Moore showed the poor young girl a new world that higher education could offer. People like the young girl in the story want to get into good education facilities for a better life. Standardized tests are the stepping-stones to universities. Standardized tests score are often used to evaluate students’ performance.

“High school grades reflect years of effort and are more reliable assessment of college potential than test scores.” Historians detected that standardized testing started back in the seventh-century in China. The government of China began to organize written exams to select people for the civil service. Also many educators try to make sure that they are following the right requirements but some of them don’t and do all sorts of stuff with the results. Many individuals would say that standardized testing is a helpful way of learning from what the student knows and doesn’t, but the consequences that teachers found out of the standardized tests are making the students have a decrease in critical thinking.

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

Bandwagon is a term used to describe a particular activity or cause that has suddenly become fashionable. With the increased boring state the world currently bears, humans tend to hop on to bandwagon like there is no tomorrow. Is social media a friend or foe? In my case, I am unaffected by its wrath as I am not a bandwagoner. Bandwagoners are defined as people who stay in trend with the latest styles earth have to offer. My brilliant eyes see no needs of such excitement as I am already intriguing myself. In the past, I remembered times where people conversed about the many acquaintances they have conjured through social media sites such as Facebook. In reality, I perceived the uselessness of such application and stray away from such rubbish.