Why Is Standardized Testing Unfair

In the world today standardized testing is mandatory in all schools whether they are public or private. If schools continue to make these test mandatory, students grades will show the reflection of what they are not learning. The school might also receive less state funding due to poor performance on these tests. Once No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was introduced US students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st in 2009 (Standardized). Standardized testing is not beneficial overall because it does not cater to all students, they do not cover real-life topics, and they are detrimental to students.

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.

Standardized tests are often unfair to a wide range of students. Students coming from high-poverty schools often have fewer resources and weaker teachers (Layton A1). “People are sick of the overkill of test volume and the consequences, ridiculous things like rating art teachers based on the reading test scores in their schools” quote Robert Schaeffer (Layton A1). “Fort Myers, Florida, gives 183 tests during the year!” quote Sen. Patty Murray (Layton A1). There is many ways students can be evaluated more

Although the blame cannot all be placed on the administration, the problem with standardized testing itself stems from government involvement. The introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act led to more and more standardized testing. The Act was issued in “an attempt to build an accountability system” (Cox). If every school in the nation was held to the same standard, the government would be able to dissect where students and schools are struggling and where they are succeeding. Ideally, every school would not only be held to the same standard, but every school would also be fulfilling the expectations set out. Unfortunately, with all the competition and hardships we naturally face as an economy and a society, it is difficult to envision an ideal situation becoming reality. If schools were scrutinized in more efficient ways, it's possible the gap between the highest and lowest schools would be smaller. However, the method the government uses to gather data is testing, and this has led to figures that are shocking. In the US “a typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten classes and 12th grade” (Layton). “The Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration, Diane Ravitch, became known for her push to establish national standards for K-12” (Erickson). She admits that test scores have become the end goal for politicians, and not actually teaching. She reveals “Test scores are not being used for diagnostic purposes but as a clumsy and myopic way to evaluate (and penalize) American schools, teachers, and students”

According to Kxan News “Each year, thousands of Texas students don’t graduate high school because they can’t pass the required standardized tests.”(Prazan) These standardized tests are supposed to be used to show the level of academic improvement within each individual student. However, various students who may do well in school and pass all of their classes have ended up failing the state test, which can lead to them not graduating on time. The materials that make up these tests are not always relevant to what should be needed for a student to move on to the next grade in the first place, which is why they should not be the deciding factor on a student's academic future. Standardized tests are known to

Should high-stake tests determine if students can move on a grade? Standardized test should not be used to determine student promotion. These test held back one-third of all fourth graders in Louisiana. The test doesn’t tell you w the student is learning or not. These standardized test across the country tell whether a student is able to obtain their high school diploma or their eighth-grade diploma.

Through the creation of the No Child Left Behind initiative in 2001, the government started requiring every state to set content standards for each grade level, as well as develop ways to assess student progress with meeting specified standards (Guide,22). The amount of standardized tests in schools have increased, but not everyone shares the belief that they are effective to students’ overall learning. Therefore, the purpose of this research, is to answer some of the toughest questions regarding standardized testing which include, is standardized testing an effective measurement of student ability? As well as, is standardized testing beneficial to students?

In the United States, children usually start school between the age five the six. Children will be in elementary from kindergarten through fifth grade and in third grade students are introduced to standardized testing. Standardized testing is... There are reasons to why this is a problem. The educational system is supposed to help and teach and prepare you for your future career, not standardized tests. Test scores shouldn’t determine the intelligence of the students are or how much they have learned.

There has been an ongoing debate on standardized testing as to whether or not it is necessary for individuals to complete. These exams are generally used to measure academic success and assembles a prediction as to how well a student will perform in subsequent courses.

Standardized tests have caused disagreements all across the U.S. According to http://standardizedtests.procon.org/, though they don’t improve most student achievements, it does improve positive effects in 93% of students. Hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents around the U.S are very against Standardized Tests. The teachers opt against the tests for the simple fact of they are evaluated from the results of their students. Parents opt because the tests end up stressing out there children. Standardized testing teaches students to take tests. The average student takes about 113 tests from kindergarten to 12th grade.

”Between pre-K and 12th grade, students take about 112 mandatory standardized exams" (washingtonpost). There are numerous negative effects following this shocking statistic that cause a stir with schools all over. For the majority of students, standardized testing is burdensome and loathed. Scores give an inaccurate representation of students' abilities and the system is often corrupt. They pose as a type of analysis that is designed to administer and record information in a consistent method. However, as years have passed, these commercially prepared tests have destroyed the idea of school being a safe learning environment. The stress of the test have also been found to push trusted educators to neglect the goal of maximizing each student to their full potential. Not only are millions spent on

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Nobel Prize winning Physicist Albert Einstein, former Vice President Dick Cheney, light bulb inventor Thomas Edison, Oscar winning director Steven Spielberg, creative genius Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs, the visionary behind Apple; these iconic figures are often associated with genius, but were viewed as “slow” or “dumb” during school. These individuals were expelled or dropouts of school, because they were not meeting standards. After years of failing in school, these people went on to revolutionize the world, while inspiring many others to make a difference.

You may wonder, Why do we have standardized tests? They were created so that the government could keep track of how schools were performing and they wanted to see how the money they gave the schools was being used. “In 1965, as part of the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration sent extra federal funding to low-income schools, and in return asked for data to make sure the money was making an impact.”(Rizga) “Standardized tests have been a part of American . education since the mid-1800s.” (Standardized) Standardized testing has been in our lives for over 150 years and it has been used to keep track of the education level of the citizens. “The modern testing movement began with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), enacted

Those students only have speaking problem and no other kind of disabilities should be expected to be tested just as the others. I have worked with those students that are capable of learning and being tested as the other students. Those students that have learning disabilities can and sometimes retain what they have learned. They can be tested but not the way other students are tested. These students should be made an exception to this rigorous testing. There are other ways to test these students. President Barack Obama has used an executive authority to revise the No Child Left Behind education law, there are factors driving toward the use of student test scores, classroom observation and input from students among other measures how to determine (Helfing, 2011). The factors that I have seen in working with Special Education-there have to be different ways of determining what level of disabilities does each disabled student has in order to say that this disabled student can be tested with a standard test as the non-disabled student. This will be an appropriate way of determining the ability of that student. The teacher is the one that observes the students and know capabilities of that student. President Obama stated that there are states wanting to get relief from the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law might be able to get a waiver from this law (Hefling, 2011). In Idaho States Department of Education is working on a public

Gender, culture, socioeconomic biases give White, affluent, and male test-takers advantages on standardized tests. This occurrence is problematic because it adversely impacts, a definable subgroup of test takers when to compare with the remainder of the test takers. When a test is biased, it can be problematic if the differential validity test is not equally valid for relevant subgroups. Argumentatively, that there is no such thing as a bias-free test, but it can still be unfair. African American students are the recipients of this inequity versus any another racial/ethnic group. Theoretically, the test-makers must aim to reduce or lower test bias for racial, gender, ethnic groups. Always consider African Americans’ background experiences