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The importance of standardized tests
Best arguments against standardized testing
Standardized testing in education
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Recommended: The importance of standardized tests
Why do Standardized Test Never Seem to Really Work? What is the most common and popular way to evaluate the academic achievements of our nation’s students, teachers, and our school district's today? Answer: standardized testing (otherwise known as high-risk testing). There are many arguments against the usage of these high-risk tests that have been put forward. This method of monitoring and evaluating our academic success has its drawbacks. Standardized testing tends to be corporate run, narrows curriculum, afflicts too much stress on the youth of our nation and is not always fairly scored. Standardized testing should be extremely modified to accommodate everyone and their different strengths, or be eliminated altogether.
Scoring on high-risk test has been known to have low and questionable validity. With this irregularity it emphasizes how unjust, unethical and unreasonable subjubjecting students to these test can be.
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Students feel as if they don’t pass or do poorly they have failed. Low test scores can cause low self-esteem, low self esteem can cause lack of confidence in other areas of a student's life; which could cause them not to reach their full potential later in life. We shouldn't let our kids get so discouraged at a young age. High-risk test inflict stress, anxiety, and pressure. Stress can cause real physical and mental illness, even to the point of hospitalization. “...details matter but factual accuracy doesn’t.” (Balf).
On the other hand, some say that standardized testing is a blessing to education. “...test curriculum is better than no real curriculum at all.” (Sadowski). In a way, that is very true. Standardized test help give school districts, colleges and the government an estimate of how much the kids know. But the method and validity of which these test are given and scored is questionable. There is definite room for
Parents and advocates of education can all agree that they want their students to be in the best hands possible in regards to education. They want the best teachers, staffs, and schools to ensure their student’s success. By looking at the score results from standardized testing, teachers can evaluate effectively they are doing their job. On the other side, a proponent for eliminating standardized testing would argue that not all students care passionately about their education and will likely not perform to expectations on the test. However, receiving the numerical data back, teachers can construe the student’s performances and eliminate the outliers of the negligent kids. Teachers can then look at the individual scores and assign those outliers to get the help they need in school. This helps every student getting an equal chance at education. Overall, taking a practice standardized test can let a teacher look at individual questions and scores and interpret what they need to spend more time on teaching. A school also can reap the benefits from standard testing to ensure they are providing the best possible education they can. The school can look at the average scores from a group and hold the teacher accountable for the student’s results on the test. The school can then determine the best course of action to pursuit regarding the teacher’s career at the school. By offering teachers and schools the opportunity to grow and prosper, standardized testing is a benefit for the entire education
Although standardized testing is supposed to reflect what the students have learned, they often times do not to the fullest potential. What some educators may not take into consideration is the limited resources and ways that teachers are able to get the information across. Standardized testing not only has a negative effect on the things listed above but also a negative impact on the learning styles. Many standardized test are created to improve student achievement, but studies show that the testing format has not improved this at all. Standardized tests also do not incorporate all of the different types of learning, and since this is the case not all of the testing results are measured accurately, which can make the results be very incorrect.
Standardized tests have been used to see how much a child has learned over a certain period of time. These tests have been a highly debated issue with many parents and just people in general. In the article “Opting out of standardized tests? Wrong answer,” the author Michelle Rhee argues that people should not be trying to opt out of standardized tests because it allows the country to see how much a child has learned and the things they need to improve. On the other hand, in the article “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong,” the author Kristina Rizga argues that standardized tests are not an efficient way to measure a student’s intelligence.
Standardized testing is not the best way to measure how well a teacher teaches or how much a student has learned. Schools throughout the United States put their main focus on standardized tests; these examinations put too much pressure on the teachers and students and cause traumatizing events. Standardized testing puts strain on teachers and students, causing unhealthy occurrences, Common Core is thrown at teachers with no teaching on how to teach the new way, which dampers testing scores for all students, and the American College Test determines whether a child gets into college or not based on what they have learned during high school. Standardized tests are disagreeable; tests should not determine the ranking of people. Standardized testing is believed to be the best way to evaluate how much a child has learned, however most students only score average on the tests.
tests were primarily employed as measures of student achievement that could be reported to parents, and as a means of noting state and district trends (Moon 2) . Teachers paid little attention to these tests, which in turn had little impact on curriculum. However, in the continuing quest for better schools and high achieving students, testing has become a central focus of policy and practice. Standardized tests are tests that attempt to present unbiased material under the same, predetermined conditions and with consistent scoring and interpretation so that students have equal opportunities to give correct answers and receive an accurate assessment. The idea is that these similarities allow the highest degree of certainty in comparing result...
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.
Lyndsey Layton has been covering nation education since 2011, she has written on many different topics in education, and has been employed by the Washington Post since 1998. In her article about standardized testing she states, “...students should be judged by multiple measures, including student work, written teacher observations and grades. And they overwhelmingly think teacher quality is the best way to improve education, followed by high academic standards and effective principals.” (Layton pg.1). This quote shows that standardized tests only judge certain measures of a student's intelligence. Students should be graded in multiple areas not just how well they can answer multiple choice problems. Standardized tests only grade students on one way of thinking and discourage creative, out of the box thinking. Kira Zalan is an editor for the U.S. News Weekly, she first appeared in September of 2011, and has been writing since. Zalan states, “...there are multiple paths to the same outcome and that engagement is an extremely important aspect of the equation.”(Zalan pg.1). Standardized tests only allow for one path of thinking. There can be multiple different ways to find an answer, but if students do not answer the “correct” way they will be graded as wrong. Because these tests are graded by machines and not people, the participants answers
It’s an age-old question. Do standardized tests really show what students know? Some may think they are a great way to measure education and others may think that one test does not justify a child’s knowledge. What is this test exactly? A standardized test is any test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from a common bank of questions, in the same way. They are used to “judge” or “measure” the knowledge or skills that students learn in school. The problem with these standardized tests is that they measure all students on the same material, leaving out special skills the student may have. It also puts a great deal of stress on a student to know that they will be timed on these questions that
Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.
Standardized testing remains to be a major controversial issue for the American society today. Exams are given to students at different levels in their educational career and are supposed to measure their academic knowledge, but are these tests really the best way to evaluate students? There have been numerous alternatives suggested to replace or be used in conjunction with standardized testing.
As Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” (Baskerville, 2013). This is very true when it comes to the school system and standardized testing. Ever since standardized testing has been implemented into the school systems, it has hindered students and teachers alike. For students, there are so many things wrong with standardized testing.
“If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.” This quote by Michelle Obama illustrates the idea that standardized testing should not have such a large influence on education in America. However, a majority of people are under the impression that standardized tests are an accurate method to measure a person's intellectual ability. I believe that standardized tests have developed into a very critical part of the American education system that is hindering the growth of students and teachers instead of providing a tool that can accurately measure knowledge.
Standardized testing is not the true test of knowledge. Most students are not always equipped and motivated for it. Even their teachers are afraid of poor test results that they spend more time on test related topics rather than focusing on the main lesson. By doing this, it fairly measures the student’s performance, does a poor job of measuring
The atmosphere of education in America has changed very little over the years. One aspect of education that seems timeless is the process of administering standardized tests to students. Standardized tests are being used more and more often in schools, prompting teachers and parents alike to wonder whether these exams are helping or harming their students. In this analysis, the benefits of using standardized testing to inform about teaching practices will be discussed in contrast to the drawbacks of focusing a curriculum entirely upon successful testing.
There is hardly a student alive who can hear the words ‘standardized testing’ and not recoil in a mix of disgust and horror. Now a necessity for any student wanting to go to college, standardized testing is a process, through tests in math, reading, science, etc., of weeding out the weak and intellectually uninclined to choose the strongest gladiator of test-takers, of whom colleges will throw money at, or perhaps even select out of the many other gladiators of many other schools to go to their prestigious ivy-league school. This description is a fairly transparent presenter of my thoughts about standardized testing, but these are made more out of personal experience than factual evidence. After all, this system must exist for a reason. Is it good for schools?