The Test Scores Should Not Be Developed By Ease And Quiet

Standardized testing is an unfair way to judge how these students are making progress. Simply, some students do not test as well as other students do. There could be a very smart student that simply can not do well on test for whatever the reason may be, but the sad thing is we allow this to continue happening even when its totally unfair. Most of the time, students that come from a low-income family are treated the most unfairly. They attended poorly-funded schools with large class sizes, too many teachers without subject area certification, and inadequate books, laboratories and so on. States don’t put these schools into consideration that they don’t have the best education system. Instead, they continue to take it out on the students and deny them diplomas because of them not being about to afford a highly-funded school.

First and foremost, I believe evaluation of student growth is the biggest issue in the educational system. Test scores do not provide the most accurate depiction of where today’s students stand in terms of content knowledge. For example, I went to Shea High School in Pawtucket Rhode Island, an incredibly diverse school, “with over 52 countries represented and over 25 languages spoken,” (www.pawtucket.shea.schooldesk.net/). With that in mind, not all students speak English, and a large majority know English as a second language. Regardless, however, all students are required to take standardized tests in English, which negatively impact the school’s test scores greatly.

These tests will provide teachers and administrators a diagnosis of how the school is performing and in which areas the school needs to improve on. This will also inform policymakers which schools are doing well and why. Then that technique can be applied to schools in which the scores were not meeting standards. President Bush and the U.S. Congress have challenged educators to set high standards and hold students, schools and districts accountable for results. (Dept. of Ed, 2004)

Also, these methods of test score fluctuation results in a false impression of the schools educational quality. Many parents seek to send their children to a highly ranked school district – often judged by standardized test scores – however, when educators partake in test day activities that raise their reputation as a “great teacher”, they are misrepresenting the true value of their classroom, and parents are sending their children into a classroom with high expectations in mind, and are ultimately being misled and deceived. This cycle also results in honest schools and districts loosing high performing students to these cheating misrepresented schools, causing the authentic schools test scores to lower, and for its funding to eventually be cut.

Standardized testing has been around since the mid 1800’s. Numbers went up when President George W. Bush enforced the No Child Left Behind Act and stated that testing will be annually in all 50 states. That is when education became more about being able to pass the test then actually trying to learn the subject and truly understand. Ever since students have always dealt with trying to get a certain score on test so they can know what schools are willing to accept them. That score just does not apply to the student it also involves the educators and the school as well. If schools do not achieve a certain goal they have budget cuts and cut teachers. Are test scores the determining factor of how much money a school will receive for that year? Is that fair to the students who want to get a great education and want to thrive to try to go law school or medical school?

Standardized test cause reduced content knowledge. In other words, teach the test criteria and nothing more. The scores that everyone is trying to get only give a person a small amount of the knowledge that, without the test, they would obtain. Theses scores are drilled so hard into a student’s head that they do not know any other thing to do than to pass that test. Barber states in his article that there were three groups of people, elected officials from the school board, the press, and the public. He said that “All three groups were clamoring for something simple and repeatable to use to judge how well their schools were doing.” He goes on to say that they thought standardized testing was just that. They wanted to compare other schools to their school, that it gives them those bragging rights. This will eventually create a ripple effect, and come back on the schools in harmful ways.

Many schools are based on the students academic scores and many of them don't do well so here's the real question "Should schools with low score on standardized tests be closed?.

Standardized testing does have its place in school. Often times it is misused and overused. “Measuring what and how well students learn is an essential building block in the process of strengthening and improving our nation's schools.

But also, standardized test don’t show the student as a whole. The only thing they are able to show is the ability of a student to take a test. These test that is forced on the students don’t show all the capabilities of a student and all that the student has to offer. Students that take these test the result doesn’t show whether the student is learning critical thinking skills or how engaged students are in the classroom. In the classroom, some students are more engaged than others and when they are assisted on the test this is not shown anywhere as a result of the students capabilities. These are all important factors to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of the students and the school. The school shouldn't be rated by these test scores but how the students act in the classroom and

A statistic showing that one student is bad at math and good in english does not show on what that student actually likes. What if that student actually loves math, but it just too dumb to understand it? Exactly. Just because the school board spends 8+ hours with the students, that does not mean they know the students in and out. Equally important, the parents pay for their children's tuition.

These tests measure only a small portion of what makes education meaningful. Gerald W-Bracey Phd qualities that standardized tests cannot measure “creativity, critical thinking, motivation, honesty, courage etc.”(standardizedtests.procon.org) In school a teacher knows his or her students and they usually know their personality and truly how wise they are in and outside the classroom. On a standardized test this is something that cannot be proven. For example, if a student gets their classwork and homework done and turns it in on time the teacher knows he or she is diligently trying in their class. If they happen to not do well on a test it might not be that the student isn’t smart or didn’t study, but it could be that the student just wasn’t their normal self that day. On a standardized

Around 66% of Americans say the scores shouldn’t be used to evaluate teachers. Since the test scores don’t come back until the following year, the teacher has no time to teach what the students are struggling with. So if standardized testing doesn’t reflect student abilities,can’t evaluate teachers properly, and students don’t have the opportunity to learn what the are struggling with that school year then what is the point of standardized testing? Many people want to take away standardized testing and replace it with more

Schools and teachers are held accountable for how well, or how poorly their students score. It can be a double edged sword to be held accountable, if performance is poor, jobs can be lost and schools can be shut down and taken over by the state. Teachers will fight to do better for their students, for their own well being and for the sake of the school.

In this day and age-standardized tests have become the sole way of testing kids, and it's affecting our educational system and schools. As stated by Education Week, an American education news site, every state requires some sort of standardized test that students must take. Our nation is no longer just looking at how kids learn and grow to see if they are achieving. They are measuring this achievement or competency through a test. Additionally, according to the Washington Post,”The average student in America’s big-city public schools takes some 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and the end of 12th grade” (Valerie Strauss). As important as standardized tests have become, the question begs again, “Which school provides students with the skills needed to learn and perform on these tests”. While both year-round and public schools benefit its students, year-round schools focus on student retention, while public schools focus more on standardized tests.

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.