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The effects of standardized tests on students
Standardized testing and its effects
The effect of standardized testing
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In today’s world every human being needs some form of education to survive, weather being informal, formal, home schooled, private schooled or publicly schooled. Humans need some type of skills and learning experiences in their lives for personal growth as well. There are millions of students who attend private and public school each year. All of these students will be required to take some sort of standardized test throughout their educational career to measure their progress or achievement level. The federal government requires students to take standardized test at least once a year in the following subjects: Math, English, Science, and History. The test can vary based on each state, each students ability and language level. Testing is a normal common part of a school’s environment in order to measure achievement. However it is not good when the curriculum, teachers, administrator and government officials get so immerse into the results of the test that they lose focus on teaching the subject and start teaching them how to pass the test. Should the government continue to administer high-stakes test for accountability reasons or should they abolished them all-together is the question? …show more content…
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB) was signed into law January 8, 2002.
NCLB holds state school systems and agencies’ accountable for improving the overall quality of each student’s education. NCLB targets low performing schools and students to try and help bridge the gap between them and higher achievers. A factor of the NCLB is the Adequate Yearly Progress (APY). AYP is how the United States department of education measures the progress of every school in the country based on the test. With both NCLB and AYP working together things began to change. After 13 years the advantages and disadvantages are apparent.(Maleyko
600-624) One problem with NCLB is that a whole years worth of instructional time is being tested and measured with one test. There are many factors like health, environment and anxiety that can cause students not to test well. Being that the test is high-stakes for everyone involved, many school systems began to drill their students in the testing subjects, reducing the student’s elective time such as music, art and P.E.(Mora 1-9) NCLB encourages scientifically based teaching methods, which limits the teachers creativity. NCLB concentrates mainly on English and Math achievement leaving other subjects such as social studies, and science with less instructional time. Unfortunately, the test scores fall directly back on the teachers weather they are good or bad. No Child Left Behind also has some advantages. NCLB provides a great sense of accountability by making sure teachers and schools address all the subject matters that need to be discussed in a timely manner. It helps the schools and government to have detailed records of all the student’s performance over the years so they can see which methods work and which do not. This also is an incentive for the teachers to make sure every child learns the material. NCLB was a strong attempt to reform the United States education system. It was very helpful in some areas and not in others. As a whole NCLB failed, creating additional problems and adding pressure on highly qualified teachers.
This is precisely the problem. Standardized tests are old and outdated, and the harm they cause to America’s education system by far outweighs the benefits. These tests were intended to monitor and offer ways to improve how public schools function, but instead they have impaired the natural learning ability of students and imposed upon the judgment of experienced educators. Although a means to evaluate the progress of public schools is necessary, it is also necessary to develop more modern and effective ways of doing so. Standardized testing mandated by the federal and state governments has a negative effect on the education of America’s youth.
The reason for high stakes testing in schools was to see where students stood academically. It was made to check on the progress and status of whether teachers and staff were doing their job as they are responsible for a child’s learning. In 2002, George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act. Each state had to come up with their own testing systems for students to meet certain standards. This was influenced by Red Paige who was superintendent at Houston I.S.D. Accountability was their main goal with this kind of testing. Texas tests are created by Sandy Kress who teamed up with Pearson. The current test outraging the opposed side is the STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) test. Kress came up with this test because people felt that the previous TAKS test was not helping students with college readiness. The STAAR test counts towards 15% of a student’s grade (Blakeslee 126). It is a harder test and Texas is a state with the most exit level exams as it is. Even though people disagree with this test even more, Kress and his followers believe that the test is not failing students, but their teachers are. Defenders can be pretty harsh and blunt about why the STAAR should stay. Bill Hammond made a stat...
One time I heard a teacher at my old high school tell a new teacher that their job is to teach to the test and nothing else. I did not really know what she meant, but I knew something about what she said sounded very wrong. I thought why are they just teaching us how to pass the test instead of just teaching us what we need to know? Later I found out that whether or not I graduate depends on passing the test. The idea of standardized testing to say whether or not students graduate is a bad one. Not just bad for schools, principals, and teachers, but it can mean the end of a student’s future before it begins. That means not only does schools suffer, but everyone in our communities, states, and country suffers. It used to be that students had to take standardized tests every year. The results of these tests said what school districts would get more money or less money for the next school year. And it would also tell schools and teachers if some students needed to be put into higher level programs such as gifted and talented or advanced placement courses or if they were having problems and should be put in special education.
Some may say standardized tests are a wonderful thing for schools to test their students but I'm here to tell you why they are bad. The standardized tests have too many problems that need to be changed. There is problems with how many are taken and they need to be fixed. There are too many problems with these tests and the government needs to modify them. So this essay will explain that standardized tests are bad and they need to be fixed, because kids take too many of them, countries who take less are outscoring us, and they are too low quality.
Imagine walking into school on day one of the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, or better known as TCAP. You are rushed to your proctor’s room. This is just day one of the six long grueling test days. The school board is counting on you to score high enough to reflect positively on your school district. Each session will last up to sixty minutes with just enough time for most students to finish. There are usually three sessions per day. For most students, this process is one which is dreaded with each coming year. TCAP results are scored by advanced, proficient, partially proficient, or unsatisfactory (Time4Learning). The TCAP tests students from 3rd through 10th grade. This test happens the same time each year. There are four different tests that constitute the TCAP: reading, writing, math, and for the 5th, 8th, and 10th grades science.
Since the U.S. Congress passed the No Child Left Behind program, standardized testing has become the norm for American schools. Under this system, each child attending a school is required to take a standardized test at specific grade points to assess their level of comprehension. Parents, scholars and all stakeholders involved take part in constant discussions over its effectiveness in evaluating students’ comprehension, teachers’ competency and the effects of the test on the education system. Though these tests were put in place to create equality, experts note that they have created more inequality in the classroom. In efforts to explore this issue further, this essay reviews two articles on standardized testing. This essay reviews the sentiments of the authors and their insight into standardized examination. The articles provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that standardized tests are not effective at measuring a teacher’s competency because they do not take into account the school environment and its effect on the students.
Standardized testing assesses students, teachers, and the school itself, which puts a great deal of pressure on the students. High scores show that the school is effective in teaching students, while low test scores make teachers and schools look as though they are not teaching the students properly. This is not always the case. There are teachers who do teach students what they need to know to pass the test, but their students are still unprepared. Although teachers try to improve instruction, student performance is still variable to other factors that the school cannot control.
The world is no longer concerned with educating whole human beings, but instead, it is focused on collecting “data.” “Standardized testing robs students and teachers of using their creativity and critical thinking. It holds everyone accountable for meeting this one standard when that is nearly impossible to do. It turns us into robots, dehumanizing both teachers and students.” (Gettysburg College, 1) Standardized test are given to schools by the government. The problem with that is that the government is not in the classroom with students every day. They do not know what the students need. Standardized testing takes away time from student learning experiences where they are not able to think critically or be creative. Standardized tests take place in an artificial learning environment. They are timed, students are not allowed to ask questions, use references, talk to another student, and they cannot even get up and move around. All of these things do not mirror the reality of the real world at all. These tests are reducing the richness of human experience and human learning to a number/ set of numbers. A student may have a deep knowledge of a particular subject, but receive no acknowledgement for it because their test score may have been low. Maybe if students could draw a picture, lead a group discussion, or make a hands-on project, they could show all the knowledge that they really have. They cannot do any of these things in a standardized test. As stated before, testing also creates “winners” and losers.” The “winners” get to move on with their life, but the “losers” often suffer from loss of self-esteem and the damage of “low expectations.” Standardized tests do not value diversity either. There are a wide range of differences in the people who take standardized tests. People have different cultural backgrounds, different levels of proficiency in the English language, different learning and thinking styles, different
There are many arguments that are pro standardized testing, such as standardized testing prepares students for their futures and gives all students equality with what they have been taught. As I stated above, even though all students may be given the same standardized test, their education is not equal, and therefore the standardized testing is extremely unfair to use the scores to assess whether or not the students prepared. When we had class debates one of the topics was standardized testing and how it affected our schools, one of the arguments against standardized testing was that the tests are not true to showing off the student’s ability. Many students have severe test anxiety and because of that, their testing scores are not what they
Argument Against Standardized Testing President Bush is promoting annual standardized testing for all students in grades three through eight. This bill is currently being considered in Congress, and has garnered much support. As of right now, 15 states test students in those grades, and more than 20 have high school exit exams, which look only at the test score of a student, not at his or her academic achievements. Standardized testing is an unfair and inaccurate form of judging a person’s intellect. In many cases, people are either over- or underrepresented by their test scores, partly because America does not currently have the capabilities to fairly score the increasing number of tests.
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.
One of the biggest topics in the educational world is standardized tests. All fifty states have their own standards following the common core curriculum. There are many positives and negatives that go with the standardized tests. A standardized test is any type of “examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner” (Popham, 1999). These standardized tests are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Schools use achievement tests to compare students.
Do you come to school everyday and think “Yay, we have a test today”? I’m sure your answer is “no”. This is one of many reasons why we shouldn’t have standardized tests. We shouldn’t have standardized tests because they don’t prove student achievement, let students’ motivation suffer, and take up class time. How well a student does should not be determined by a test score.
Are you tired of spending hours upon hours doing and preparing for standardized tests? Some people say that the testing system is perfect how it is. However, people that think like me say that it needs to be changed. I think that the test system needs to be changed because it is ineffective, it promotes teaching to the test, and is stressful for teachers, students, and schools. Shall we get started?
Standardized testing doesn’t provide a true picture of a student’s ability. According to the article “Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing”, Standardized testing evaluates a student’s performance on one particular day and does not take into account external factors. Meaning that the student is judged on how smart they are with this test. This is unfair because there are many people who are smart but have test anxiety allowing them not to focus on the test. Many other people understand the subject and know what to do but don’t show it on the test.