What Is Your Experience With Standardized Testing?

There is so much to consider when talking about assessments. There are all kinds of different types of assessments. There are assessments that happen on a daily basis in the classroom and then there are the tests that everyone knows about; the state mandated assessments, map test, and some know about DIBLES tests. These are the types of tests that parents, teachers, and administrators debate about. The debate is whether or not these test are doing students any good or harming them. It is good to have data on student and school’s progress, it keeps everyone accountable however, some believe that schools are testing too much. That all this time focused on testing is actually taking away from learning time. Each type of assessment has it’s own set of challenges.

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.

My first reason standardized tests are not a good idea is that they overpopulate the schools. Texas takes 15 and Indiana takes 5. The tests take away time from learning more about a subject. Our country as a whole takes way to many standardized tests. standardized tests are overpopulating schools and not letting kids learn more parts of the subjects.

Since Middle School, I was not opposed to standardized testing. I thought of it as a way of testing us of what we have learned. Although, after reading some articles about standardized testing I am re-thinking the pros and cons. From personal experience, I thought of it as a challenge to pass them. But now that reminisce about it, I noticed some of the cons of standardized testing. I remember having a week or two dedicated for testing, and in case of students failing they had to take time to redo it. It would take a while for all the students to finish their tests. And after remembering how it was back in those times I was more on the opposed side.

Would you like to take a test that is unfair, expensive, and unreliable? Chances are you already have. Standardized testing in schools is not only bad for the students, but also bad for our country’s future. Some might think standardized testing is a good thing, because it is the only way to measure all students the same across the country. However, this thought is wrong for many reasons.

Don’t all students hate standardized tests. They waste lots of time and don’t influence your grade so then what’s the point of them. I think that students shouldn’t take standardized tests. First of all students take the test in May and don’t get the results until September so the test doesn’t do much. Lots of teachers also only teach to the test meaning they only prepare them to pass the test. Students might know the content but because of test anxiety they might not be able to show it on the test.

Standardized testing has become a controversial topic in recent years, parents, students, teachers, principals and almost anyone who has a relationship with education is affected by this topic. People are either for or against standardized testing, some believe it is the only fair way to compare students others believe that the tests are too greatly stressed in school and are a nuisance to education. Standardized tests are stressed greatly, students learn testing material all year not focusing on anything else deemed unimportant by the test makers. Every student has the same amount of time and question on tests; they also are tested on the same subjects which the test makers believe are most important for children to learn. Standardized tests are used for many things such as ranking students on a national basis and government funding for schools.

These states tests can also allow teachers of these tests whose classes to be rewarded if

“There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old "accountable" for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before,” quote Jonathan Kozol. As this quote apptly states many children are often robbed of simple childhood pleasures by standardized testing. These strenuous tests should be cut back to the absolute minimum. Standardized tests should not be required because they provide unnecessary stress, are often inaccurate because of computer and human error, and some students, particularly minorities, are at a clear disadvantage.

"If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guaruntee you that." said Michelle Obama, according to brainyquotes.com. Standardized testing is everywhere. Children as young as eight years old take these tests in which all test takers are given the same test no matter what their specific needs are. At some schools, these tests determine whether you move on to the next grade and even if you graduate. However, is this really fair? While some students perform exceptionally, others do not. I think students should not be required to pass a test at the end of the year to move on to the next grade or to graduate because not all students test well. These tests can also add additional stress and anxiety to a student's life, and they are unfair to non English speakers and students with disabilities.

The first rationality I have is that the tests can cause unneeded stress among young children. The stress can be caused from teachers preparing for the tests, instead of teaching what the tests are examining the students about. This means that school corporations will make sure the test networks are working, wasting roughly an hour per class, this time could be rehearsing what the test is covering. Another reason stress can be caused is because some students don’t take tests seriously. The teachers are graded from their students so if some students are not taking the tests seriously the students who work diligently are given unfair work. In truth, this is why Standardized Tests cause stress in younger children.

Yes i do feel as if the school is wasting their time on standardized testing because as a kid i want learning to be fun not always having to worry about a test every moment. I would like to be taught for different reasons in stead of being always being taught for test and the future, i know when i get older i'll probably would understand a little bit more but till than i want schools to realize that kids don't want to know that we are only being taught for standardized testing and teacher are very strict about the testing i'm not trying to tell any one how to work their classes but sometimes they have to understand its not all about test and teacher why some kids don't like to work .

Standardized testing has many cons but it also has its pros. Standardized Testing can be a guideline for teachers on what to teach their students and what they are learning and if they need help If they are falling behind. Since all students around the state and county take standardized test such as the ACT the SAT or the FCAT it can let parents know where there child stands compared to other students around the state. One major cause standardized testing has to helping teachers is that it allows us to track the students progression. For example it tells us if the student has improved over the years , stayed consistent, or has fallen behind. We can track this because students take test like the FCAT year-round which lets us calculate the progression of the student. Standardized test also lets us compare how boys are doing compared to the girls.(Margie)

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.

According to Turgut, educational tests have improved in its validity and reliability since the initial introduction of standardized tests (65). Parents and educators who have experienced tests and quizzes every class time believe that if given more exams, students would have to