The Cons Of Standardized Testing

At the end of the article Keene also points out that the way teachers handle and teach during class is what’s forcing theses harder to reach claims. The teaching ways show that not giving a challenge to the students makes it harder for them to achieve their goal and try to succeed in college.

‘recognition that your performance can be improved is accepting that whatever does (or does not) happen in the classroom is in the hands of the teacher’ (2009, p.104)

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

When people think of the education system, most can say that there are some problems, though they might not be able to pinpoint what needs to change first. If you ask most teachers, they will say that the first thing that needs to be changed in the schooling system to help the students more is the standardized testing. They will say that while it can be helpful it has a lot of faults and needs to be updated or changed to help its students. Standardized testing has often been a topic for discussion, between parents and people in the schooling system. It seems that a lot of people either hate standardized testing for not giving every child a chance to succeed, or love it for being a fair way to test whether a child knows what they need to know at their age. There have been many articles, books, and documentary’s debating on whether or not standardized testing is doing more harm then good. There was a comic made that shows the brutality and bluntness of what standardized testing is really like. Standardized Testing causes too much stress by putting unfair expectations on teens and doesn’t give every single student the chance to succeed.

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

Each year high school students from around the country take the SAT or ACT. The ACT and SAT are both standardized test used by colleges to determine the knowledge of a student and predict what their performance will be in their first year of college. An immense amount of pressure is put on student to receive certain scores in order to obtain scholarships and admission into college. Even just one point on a student’s score can determine if they will be accepted into their dream college. However, the results from standardized tests, such as the ACT and SAT, are often inaccurate. Because of this one’s knowledge and academic ability are misrepresented, and they are denied certain opportunities. Standardized tests such as the ACT and the SAT

Throughout high school and college we will go through a vast amount of testing but why? Testing is used to show a person’s amount of knowledge on a particular subject. Usually it’s for one specific subject and not a majority of them, standardized tests administered in schools today include all testable subjects as in English, Math, Science, Writing, and Reading. However, before we can all take the next step and begin our college careers, we have to take one of two tests, the ACT or the SAT. These two exams demine the college you get into, the amount of scholarships you will receive, and even whether or not your will be accepted into said college, all determined by the score you receive.

Standardized Testing can be both a benefit to the educational community and a very serious problem. Standardized Testing is said to have negative effects on both the students and the teachers. Standardized Testing has created many problems and has become a very big factor in politics. Some people argue that the government is influencing the education system. While others believe that the government isn’t involved enough. There are many pros and cons to both but the cons outnumber the pros.

Standardized testing creates a lot of stress on students and educators alike. Because of how much stress is put on them to prepare students for these tests, many excellent teachers quit their jobs everyday. In fact, in April, new federal data stated that 17 percent of new public school teachers leave their profession after four years due to stress and other reasons. Some teachers fail to teach students skills that go beyond the tests because they’re so pressured to get their students ready for these exams. This amount of stress can lead to feelings of negativity towards school and learning in general as well as cause negative health issues. Standardized tests places a large amount of stress on both teachers and students.

For instance, one math teacher might be an extraordinarily lenient grader, while another might be brutally hard.” Though I do agree with this point, I also believe that the way teachers prepare students for standardized tests can differentiate from teacher to teacher as well. During my senior year, I took two SAT preparation classes. Looking back and comparing the two classes, I felt like each class was for a different test. After just one day in the second class I learned more than I did the whole time spent in the first

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.

Imagine a world where a car dealer is assessed, not on his own work but on how many cars his colleagues sell? A pretty unfair world that would be, too bad it’s a reality for teachers. However, in this scenario, teachers are assessed by how well their students do on their standardized tests. Schools all around the globe use standardized tests to base their entire curriculum. If a teacher cannot “teach” their students the test, a poor few are eventually fired and replaced by another teacher who can “teach” the test better. Not only are children stressed about taking the test, but the teachers are as well. A post from a New York art teacher explained that he was judged on a subject that he didn’t even teach. His teaching score dropped from an

It may not be the teacher’s performance that is affecting the students test scores. The students may not develop on the same level that the standardized test are wanting them develop at. Tests scores are unreliable, but they still are more often right than wrong, but not sufficiently more often to justify making high-stakes decisions on the basis of test scores alone.

High-stakes standardized tests are tests that determine awards, punishments, compensations, and advancements for a school. These tests hold standards that students are expected to reach and that the teachers are expected to bring the students to reach. Emergent bilinguals are the students we refer to as English Language Learners in American Schools: students whose primary language may not be English. According to the book Educating Emergent Bilinguals, “It has been widely demonstrated that as a result of inadequate high-stakes tests, emergent bilinguals experience more remedial instruction, greater probability of assignment to lower curriculum tracks, higher drop out rates, poorer graduation rates, and disproportionate referrals to special education classes (103). All of these are negative results associated with high-stakes tests and emergent bilinguals.

It was seventh grade when I took the math EOG and I was worried sick. Sweating from my palms, hardly being able to breathe and yes, an occasional nap were all symptoms I suffered from these tests. I’m sure you ask any kid if they want to take a standardized test, many would say no, with the small percentage that would approve of them. Parents are often split with these test, because they want the best for their child’s future but they also hate to see their child struggle. Based off of the opinions of both children and parents, a vast majority want to eliminate them. However, the standardized tests everyone hates to take, is a necessary evil that needs to stick around for years to come.