What Are Educational Standards? Essay

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

“…only twenty-two percent of those surveyed said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools compared with twenty-eight in 2007” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). Furthermore the poll indicated an eleven percent increase, compared to last year, towards the favor of discontinuing the usage of students’ test results for teacher evaluations. William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of PDK/Gallup Poll also stated, “Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). All in all, not only are these tests a concern for students, who are forced to sit through them, hoping to get a decent enough score to place into a class, receive their diploma, or even get accepted to the college of their dreams, but they are a concern for parents as well, who only want the best for their children and to see them succeed.

Currently, there are around 37 thousands schools in the United States. Each year, there are more than a million students that applying for college institutions (National Center for Educational Statistics). As an university admission office, it is often difficult to select students based on numbers and words that show up on their application without knowing the applicant. Since there are many factors and can impact a student’s high school experience and performance, it is unfair to be comparing every student in the United States with a same standard. In order to minimize these differences, standardized tests were invented along with the No Child Left Behind act in 2001 which enforced all students to participate. Ideally, standardized tests are objective and graded by computer. The test is expected to be evaluating all students with the same standards. While the educators and designers of the standardized tests focus on generating a test that allows them to compare all students fairly, they abandon the fact that all students’ resources and backgrounds are inevitably different. Assuming that all elements of an educational system serve to benefit students’ learnings, standardized testing is an inadequate method of evaluation due to its negative impact on students and teachers’ mindsets, inaccuracy in evaluation of students’ abilities, and the

A never-ending issue has loomed over the head of our nation-- education. According to the Institute of Education Sciences, 63.7% of American students are below proficient in reading and 65.7% in math. In order to improve educational standards and increase student achievement, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) in 2002. Designed to increase the role of the federal government in education, it holds schools accountable based on how students perform on standardized tests. Statistics show that the average student completes about 110-115 mandatory, standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and end of twelfth grade (an average of eight tests per year). Standardized testing utilizes

Adopted by forty-two out states in 2010, the Common Core State Standard Initiative strives to provide an educational structure which details what English language arts and mathematics should be taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The initiative is the federal government’s attempt to ensure all students who graduate from high school are adequately prepared to enter a two or four year college or the workforce. Despite their intentions, the Common Core has caused much controversy in the education community. The thought behind Common Core is very valid and has the potential to help students, however changes must be made to unrealistic standards and wordy statements. Common Core must first be rewritten so that the language is clear and can be easily understood by the general public. Next ask experts on childhood development and elementary school teachers to review the standards and rewrite standards they see as unneeded or irrelevant as well as unrealistic.

State-mandated standardized testing has lately become a monster to be feared by students from the beginning of their school career. According to well respected educational author Alfie Kohn, “[…] Most of today’s discourse about education has been reduced to a crude series of monosyllables: Test scores are too low. Make them go up” (Kohn 1). Why all the testing? Some is to meet the federal government requirements, some to meet state requirements, some for the district and some for the school, and still more tests are given simply to help students prepare for the ones already mentioned. So much testing has reduced time for instructors to actually teach. In addition, many of the tests neglect to cover all important material,

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)

Common Core State Standards is being heard throughout the education world. Many cringe when the words are spoken and many fight to support what the words stand for. Common Core was introduced in 2009 by state leaders. Common Core State Standards were developed to prepare children for the business world or the reality after grade school. “The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, also known as ELA” (About the Standards, n.d.). The goals for the standards outline what students should know before leaving his or her current grade level. “The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live” (About the Standards, n.d.). This is an ambitious goal, but with much support can be accomplished. According to Common Core State Standards Initiative (n.d.) The Common Core has been adopted by forty-two states already and is accompanied by District of Columbia and Department of Defense Education Activity. Common Core was developed to improve the academics in society’s schools. Academics in the past years have not been successful and the United States has fallen behind international education. “One root cause has been an uneven patchwork of academic standards that vary from state to state and do not agree on what students should know and be able to do at each

The Common Core State Standards are a state attempt to create strong educational standards. The standard are created to ensure that students in the country are learning and grasping the information that are given in the classrooms for them to succeed academically. The Common Core plan included governors and education commissioners form forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. They wanted to make sure the standards are relevant, logical and sequential. For content all subjects must have critical-thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills. Some positive aspects of this policy is that it prepares our students for a competitive global jobs. It can provide national connections in education. Designed to shape the best standards so that all states will be taking a step ahead in education. These standards had been created after extensive research by professional educators for excellence in education. The CCS focus on what students expectations of learning, and achievements. Educators do not need to worry that the standards will make their jobs look redundant because they are in charge of creating lessons to teach their students the content and skills that the CCS demands. The teachers do not feel that the standards are one-size-fits-all. Some negative aspects of the policy are that is a program created by solely the government. The CCS is a program put together on idyllic situations in education by individuals who have subsidy and students ahead of the learning

The 1980s brought a new reform movement in education, accompanied by a new emphasis on testing. The effort to improve education at all levels included the use of standardized tests to provide accountability for what students are learning. Minimum competency tests, achievement tests, and screening instruments were used to ensure that students from preschool through college reached the desired educational goals and achieved the minimum standards of education that were established locally or by the state education agency. As we continue in a new century, these concerns have increased.

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.

The educational system in the United States has gone through many changes over the last century. These changes are a part of a constant movement toward educational excellence for every child in this nation. One of the most recent acts placed on public school systems by the government is to create more accountability for schools in order to ensure that all children are receiving the proper education. Part of this mandate is that public schools will require students to take tests in order to gather information about their academic achievement. Although educators and administrators claim that the mandatory ability testing programs being initiated in America’s public schools will hold students and teachers accountable for academic

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.

A very current and ongoing important issue happening within the education system is standardized testing. A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a calculated, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students might perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT’s and the ACT’s. The SAT and the ACT attempt to estimate how well high school students will perform in college. But standardized test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use: California Achievement Tests,

The No Child Left Behind Act should tremendously be re-examined and amended because the focus on the standardized tests decrease the quality of other subjects not on the tests, the tests are not an efficient tool to make certain that a student is receiving an excellent education and the tests create unnecessary stress for the students, teachers and administrators. The purpose of No Child Left Behind is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a top-grade education. This is a great proposal to strive towards but, legislation plans on achieving this proposal by making schools responsible for their students’ proficiency and to measure their proficiency with the use of standardized tests. After the students take the