The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

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.

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

Although standardized testing has been a major part of schooling it has also had a negative impact on effective education. Standardized has made a huge impact on public schooling so much that not only does it affect the students but also the teachers. With the teachers now beginning to get raises or having their jobs on the line if their students fail the test, many students have not been getting the fullest education process that they could get. Students may not realize the impact that it has had on the type of teaching style that they receive because they are so used to it. With so many teachers not having a lot of time to teach what is on the test and the other things that they feel are important to students to know, a lot of

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.

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.

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 in the United States education system went from a onetime only test called Compass test and has become a once a year maybe more test called the MEAP. There is much debate as to whether this frequency of testing is the best answer for students. This reoccurring testing can teach students valuable skills that would benefit the students later in life. People worry that every child is not the same and some test better than others, while others claim test taking is a skill they should improve. Standardized testing has altered the focus in education; it has created high stakes, which now effects schools, teachers, and students. My experience with standardized testing has not been a very pleasant one. Standardize testing reinvents the structure of education but should it be the main focus?

In a 2009 Scholastic/Gates Foundation survey found out that teachers approve of the standardized testing. Some results in the survey were that 81% of the teachers that took the survey said that the required standardized test were ¨somewhat important¨.

The United States education system has been using standardized testing since the 1800’s. Since the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 mandated annual testing in all 50 states their use has escalated tremendously. Since 2002 America has dropped from 18th to 31st in mathematics and science while reading has not improved either (ProCon). The failure of the education system has been blamed on various outlooks. There may be many factors, but standardized testing has not shown a substantial positive effect. In fact, it has hurt our students, teachers and the education system as a whole. Although some say that it holds valuable information, the negatives severely outweigh the positives in standardized testing.

Standardized tests are critical to our nation’s education system as they hold teachers and schools accountable to students, parents, and taxpayers, are perceived as generally fair, and contain some critical thinking and creative merit.

As everyone knows, there are many trends and issues when it comes to education. First, let’s discuss the current issues in today’s society. Some of the issues receiving the most attention include fairness in education, and the use of standardized testing. Standardized tests are examinations that are scored the same way across the country. They are given to students yearly to decide if they are meeting objectives. A big stress has been placed on the results of these tests. This has effected what students are taught in class, therefore teaching shifts from traditional teaching to test preparation. However, there are people who support the tests' ability to evaluate students' and schools' effectiveness. Yet, testing also has a few downsides. Teachers feel pressure to have

Will, I think you are right we overlook a lot of the systematic faults that may be contributing to difficulties students are experiencing in an everyday basis. The deficits in the system could rather lead us to think it may be the students’ problem rather than the whole environment of learning itself. The students could farther get the idea it is rather their fault, and their self-efficacy could be effected by this. It put it in perspective for me when you mentioned the thoughts that might go through the students head every time they take a test. It reminded of a quote by Einstein “Everybody is a Genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a Tree, It will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”

Over the years the educational system has faced various controversial issues, but the most recent one making a negative impact on students, is standardized testing. Standardized testing is a type of testing used to evaluate students academic abilities . It is a way to measure if standards are being met but does not provide a variation in the type of administration based on the students needs (Sacks, 2000). In other words, all children are provided these test to track their learning progress based on their grade level. Some believe this is the best way to measure students knowledge, others believe it is doing more harm than good, and I believe it is an unrealistic form of an academic evaluation. Throughout this piece, I will evaluate the various aspects of education affected by standardized testing and how we, as educators, must take a stand for our students.

Standardized testing has greatly taken over school curriculum in recent years. It has caused teachers to focus on “teaching to the test” instead of becoming creative and teaching the curriculum in their own way. Not only that, but it is also taking away from students. They are focusing more on preparing for the test and less on learning in an enjoyable way. More and more standardized tests are added each and every year and it is coming to a point to where that is all students and teachers are preparing for during school. This is affecting both teachers, students, and even parents. Standardized tests take away from traditional student-teacher relationships because teachers are having to focus on teaching

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.