Standardized Testing a Failure in Education

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Standardized testing scores proficiencies in most generally accepted curricular areas. The margin of error is too great to call this method effective. “High test scores are generally related to things other than the actual quality of education students are receiving” (Kohn 7). “Only recently have test scores been published in the news-paper and used as the primary criteria for judging children, teachers, and schools.”(2) Standardized testing is a great travesty imposed upon the American Public School system.

Politicians claim that Accountability is needed. Dylan Wiliam wrote that “The logic of accountability is deceptively simple”(110) He goes on to say that “students attending higher quality schools will (by definition) have higher achievement than those attending lower quality schools, so that the differences in quality of schools will result in systematic differences in achievement between schools”(110). Yes indeed accountability is needed. It is needed for those who pay for education (tax payers) and the people who are educated (the students). The institutions that regulate education should be held accountable for the policies they enact as well as the government that approved those actions. “Of the total variance in mathematics achievement of 15-year-olds in the United States in 2004 only 8% was attributable to the actual quality of the education provided by the school, the results in science are similar” (111). This is an indictment of the American school system, it points out that standardized testing is in fact inaccurate and unnecessary.

These facts also relate to the poor quality to which standardized testing has fallen and directly to the poor quality of education received in our public school systems. These tests ...

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...ys advancing, meaning that we too as a nation should be progressive in how we educate ourselves. There is no one right answer to the educational problems of this country, but be assured the right answers do not lie with standardized testing.

Works Cited

Kohn, Alfie. “The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools.” New Hampshire: Heinemann, 2000. Print.

Ravitch, Diane. "Launching A Revolution In Standards And Assessments." Phi Delta Kappan 74.10 (1993): 767. Educational Administration Abstracts. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.

Solley, Bobbie A. "On Standardized Testing: An ACEI Position Paper." Childhood Education 84.1 (2007): 31-37. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Wiliam, Dylan. "Standardized Testing And School Accountability.” Educational Psychologist 45.2 (2010): 107-122. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.

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