What Is Standardized Testing In Schools

Ever since standardized testing started being used as a way to evaluate the intelligence of students and the teachers’ ability to educate, the standard of actual education has been diminished immensely. Standardized testing is used in most public and private schools to analyze students’ knowledge. It has affected the way in which students learn and has corrupted the methods teachers use to educate. In some cases, English-Learning and disabled students face discrimination from teachers since teachers have more responsibility to have a high number of passing students. Some countries around the world don’t use standardized tests to rank their students or schools and yet they have been successful. Standardized tests are not efficient on making students learn, they should not be used to evaluate students’ knowledge.

Did you know, out of 65 countries 29 did better at the standardized tests than the U.S? Some people support the use of standardized tests and some are against the. I think standardized tests are not a good idea because they overpopulate schools, only test students on part of a subject, and stresses students out.

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.

The satirical news site The Onion did a pro and con list of standardized testing which highlights it perfectly. Some of the pros are, “Every student measured against same narrow, irrelevant set of standards” and, “Western tradition of critical thinking best embodied in bubble-sheet format”. One of the funnier cons is, “There are easier ways to measure parents’ income” (The Onion). In a sad way, these have some truth behind them. Which shows how much of a joke standardized testing

Moreover, the time of taking the exams alone add up to 20 hours per school year which equals to 1.4% of the entire school year ("The Truth About Standardized Testing In Texas"). Standardized testing proves to be unreliable when it comes to examining academic achievement. Per Texas Education Agency’s high school dropout and graduation rate, students’ achievement and graduation rate show to be always fluctuating proving that standardized testing in Texas schools has proven to not be effective in having students pass high school ("Completion, Graduation, and Dropouts Data Search”). The lack of the graduation rate consistently increasing shows that the teachers aren’t doing a proper job in encouraging students to get through high school, and that is what the Texas Education Agency desire the STAAR test to accomplish.

Since students know that state test scores are a big thing in their future, some students would even cheat on their test to get a better score. Including, state testing does not provide feedback to get a better score next year so they won't know how they can get a better score the next year.(source- Pros and cons of standardized testing)

Many schools statewide are facing the contradictory topic of the exemption of standardized testing amongst their students. This format of assessing with American Education began in the middle 1800’s and grew when the NO Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated testing in the US in 2002. These actions taken were said to mainly have been put in place to keep teachers and schools accountable for the assurance of those paying taxes and what government money is being spent on. Despite these comments, the vast majority of people would say that the proficiency level aligned with the state’s reading and math, find it to be an impossible goal to aim for. And throughout the course of time, multiple days in the school year have been eradicated with test

Standardized testing just adds to the long list of tests taken by student every year. Council of the Great City Schools Study says that a typical student takes 112 mandated tests between Pre-K and 12th grade. That doesn’t count tests that are given on a regular basis. The heaviest testing falls on the nation’s 8th grade.According to Washington Post, the average 8th grader spends 25.3 hours a year taking standardized tests. Having that many tests a year is stressful to both the student and the teacher. Teachers feel they need to prepare for the tests, which cuts out on the time that lessons can be taught. Standardized testing is too much for a student to handle along with all the other tests and homework they have.

You know what? A great amount of students think they should take fewer standardized tests! Standardized tests take up too much time! Yes, these tests DO make it easier to see if students are doing their work, but they also make the students’ teachers confused on what their students need help on.

On the subject of high rates of failure among students in today's education system with its hundreds of complicated exams, this is strongly indicated by Lyndsey Layton from The Washington Post. She writes, “A typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-Kindergarten classes and 12th grade, a new Council of the Great City Schools study found. By contrast, most countries that outperform the United States on international exams test students three times during their school careers.” Perhaps this is indeed a truth, as the so-called “Common Core State Standards Initiative” was met with much criticism and

Every year students are under the pressure of proving to the state of California their skills. Today it seems that standardized testing is the main focus in public education. Some believe it can detect the abilities of a student. Others think testing does nothing to prove a child understands the academic content. Testing is not correct at detecting students ability to apply their knowledge. Also, it only benefits students that are good at testing, so it sets the rest up to fail.

A man named Ken Robinson once stated that “Now the problem with standardized tests is that it’s based on the mistake that we can simply scale up the education of children like you would scale up making a carburators. We can’t because human beings are very different from motorcars, they have feelings about what they do and motivations in doing it or not.” Yes with this statement is true human beings are mechanical machines they can’t be programed to do what you want them to do they have a mind of their own on what they want to do. With state test they a negative impact on whether students have a choice in the matter which in this case they don’t have one . Passing state tests should not be required to graduate because there would be higher

All you do is just sit at your desk for hours and you just do test, nothing else.

Are you stressed out over standardized tests? Some say that the test are perfectly normal for the children. While others think that the children are too stressed over the tests. I believe that the standardized tests stress the students out too much because the children are too worried. I hope that when you are done reading this you will agree with me.

Also, some students who are behind and slower at learning the material may be inadequate for the material that is tested for on the exam. Although we do take weekly test to ensure that the students are up-to-date on their information, some students might not be able to fully grasp the information, even with the mass amount of studying they endure or the easy ability to deceive their peers and teachers by cheating, all in hopes that there wouldn’t be further questions, trying to prove themselves, or not wanting to give up. With the standardized test, we can not always be sure that the students are positively prepared for the exam and are truly ready to be tested on all the information that has been given to them. It is different with every