The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing In Schools

Knowledge isn’t all about what people know or how well they are in school. IQ tests test the intelligence of the person; however they test the pure thinking capacity rather than what people know. This means that intelligence comes from the entire cognitive thinking ability and not what they

     Since the development of the intelligence quotient, schools in every part of the world have been using the IQ test to categorize millions of students into three groups. These three groups, which are the gifted, the average, and the retarded, are falsifications that perpetuate in our world culture and cause many gifted students to be deemed retarded and vice a versa. Why then is the IQ test so heavily relied on in our school systems? For schools the answer is simple, an I.Q. test is a reliable predictor of a students later performance in academics. This answer is relatively true, but where the I.Q. test falls extremely short is with testing the multiple

Similarly, many teachers, statewide, feel that these exams that no significant value towards a student’s overall intelligence. According to a survey by both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic, of more than ten-thousand public school teachers, this report has found that teachers

Intelligent quotient test is defined as a test that has been formulated and it is often used to measure human intelligence. There are many different types of IQ tests that are used to determine the level of intelligence between different test subjects. IQ testing has a wide range of application and in different specialized professions. Human resource managers have applied IQ testing as part of the tests administer during interviewing process. However, IQ testing has a wide application in research field where they are used to measure different traits across cultures or races. IQ testing has attracted many controversies, most of which support the assertion that IQ testing is indeed biased. This essay will present arguments in support of this standpoint.

Another issue, with these tests are that many a time people view their criteria as very limited. For, e.g. Gardner has claimed that there are multi-dimensions to a person’s intelligence, while these tests only test a few of them. Thus, the tests are in no position to claim that they really represent the actual intelligence of a person. The tests assess only a narrow range of abilities therefore if a person is adept at a characteristic that is not being tested in the test then that person is deemed to be considered a person with low IQ. Such a practice is not fair and cannot be generalized. (Gardner, 1983) (Plucker, 1998).

Interest in intelligence dates back thousands of years. But it wasn't until psychologist Alfred Binet was commissioned to identify French students who needed educational assistance that the first IQ (intelligent quotient) test was born. The problem found by early psychologists was not in defining intelligence but rather measuring intelligence. The test that Binet and Simon divised early in the century distinguished between fast and slow learner and also between children of different age groups. Then Lewis Terman compared mental age and chronological age to assess intelligence and the result is called an intelligence quotient. These early tests worked well with children but had limitations as age increased. David Weschsler developed a test for adults. In fact, he designed several tests including the WAUS-IV (for adults), the WISC-IV (for children), and WPPSI-IV (for pre-school). Today the use of these tests are more prevalent than the Stanford-Binet tests (Ciccarelli & White, 2015, p. 277). On the early intelligence tests in the beginning of the 20th-century, immigrants were given tests to enter the United States. The problem lies in the fact that most immigrants did not speak the English language. There are many today who criticize standardized tests by saying they are culturally and racially biased.

may be admitted but in recent years, many colleges have begun to make standardized testing

The City of New London, Connecticut used an IQ test to determine eligibility for their police force (Aamodt, 2014). The surprise was not that they used this type of test but that people who scored too high were not hired. The cities reasoning for this was that if someone who is too bright would get bored with police work and leave the profession in a short time. Since training a new police officer is very expensive, this policy would save the city money.

Thinking is an important part of our human experience. In today’s world, it is one area of psychological study (p215). Based on the readings intelligence is a process is a combination of general abilities and practical skills. I don't think being intelligent is the same as being smart or talented. I do not believe that IQ or standardized tests are fair for many people. Standardized testing simply is a way of managing numbers; it just measures the output of one test. Standardized testing do not test to a person's talents. They do not really show how smart the students are.Therefore, they may have harmed many in the process. Each person can be good at

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. The biggest test of his life is staring him right in the face, but all he can do is try to calm his breathing before he passes out. This young man is suffering from test anxiety, something countless students endure, but have to attempt to get over in order to take a mandatory standardized test, that in no way benefits them in the future. Standardized testing shrinks the curriculum; puts too much emphasis on specific subjects; lowers students’ motivation to learn; is used as an inaccurate comparison between students; includes insignificant information; gives inaccurate evaluations of students; teachers, and schools; and promotes cheating and conformity, and therefore should not be a required part of secondary schooling.

For decades I.Q. testing has been seen as: controversial, insufficient, errorful, and unreliable when it comes to determining intellect. Used nowadays in standardized testing for public school systems as a way to measure their student’s “intelligence” in school and determine the federal funding for each school on a yearly basis. Many have seen this as unfair and wrongful of the government to try and measure something so intricate and vital to everyday living into simple numbers and figures. Then tell those who don’t land within certain parameters that they are useless in the real world.

The IQ test was one of the first standardized tests introduced in this country. Its purpose was to be used by the military to efficiently place the influx of soldiers into positions, due to the draft during WWI. The purpose of the exam was to gauge a person’s skill set and their abilities in order to place them in a category, in this case, a line of work. While the test did what it set out to do, but it favored better for middle to upper class white males. Ivy league educational institutions took notice of the results and developed entrance exams to universities that would discriminate specifically against Jews, so they would not be accepted. Since the early 1900’s, standardized testing has always discriminated against certain groups, and over

To test or not to test, this is currently a subject of an intense debate amongst parents, educators, and administrators in the domain of education. Unfortunately, providing teachers in the K-12 system the freedom to teach for the simplistic joy of teaching, does not typically hold educators accountable. Standardized testing is one of the necessary evils when it comes to the measurement of student achievement. While there are arguments on both sides of the subject concerning high stakes testing, there must be at least a designated method of standardized assessments in order to ensure students are prepared for their future, increase parents or guardian of their child’s academic measurements, and increase teacher accountability with respect to

The Gifted program exists to provide more academic opportunities for those who qualify as “gifted.” “’Gifted means performing or demonstrating the potential for performing at significantly higher levels of accomplishment in one or more academic fields due to intellectual ability, when compared to others of similar age, experience, and environment’” (Quoted in “Gifted”). In order to make it into the program the student must show higher intellectual ability than the average student at his or her age, but what determines that factor? The student must take a multidimensional test and score in the 98th percentile. However, the most weighted part of the test remains an average IQ test.

Before the 1950s, most educators and school systems tended to follow Louis Terman’s example and based most decisions about gifted individuals on IQ and scholastic achievement scores. Standardized group intelligence tests, such as California Test of Mental Maturity, were often used to determine IQ. In these tests, educators were looking for exceptional ability in verbal or performance IQ, or a combination of the two. For the final identification, individual IQ tests such as the Wechsler scales and the Stanford Binet were used. Most school systems around this time considered an IQ of 130 or above to fall in the "gifted" range. This information comes from a book by Frederick B. Tuttle, Laurence A. Becker, and Joan A. Sousa (48).