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Effectiveness of standardized testing
Argument essay against standardized testing
Argument essay against standardized testing
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Standardized testing has been around for many years. It first started out in China, testing out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry, says TIME magazine. In 1905 French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the first standardized test of intelligence, which is now the modern day IQ test. Ever since World War I standardized testing was a standard practice. These test were used to determine the assignment of U.S. servicemen jobs during the war. There has been a debate recently, asking if standardized testing is showing the true ability of the students and are the students missing out on beneficial lessons because they are only being taught to pass a test.
The question of students being tested has been a recurring argument here in the recent days. So, should students be tested? Phi Delta Kappan says that “the only thing that more testing will tell us is what we already know.” They believe that the schools who have disadvantaged students are not given the support to achieve gains. They believe the parents should be able to opted the children out of testing if they think they are incapable of doing well.
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From the same source, Phi Delta Kappan, the National Urban League president and CEO Marc H.
Morial inputs on what he sees as a need for standardized tests. He finds out that “assessment data provides students with he opportunity to receive personalized supports and necessary interventions to achieve academic success.” Moral believes there are advantages of testing the students. If they’re tested the parents of the students can find the area they are struggling the most in and help find the tools to help them in that certain subject. In the book, Clinical Pediatric Neurology, it states, “standardized tests may help identify developmental language disorders, dyslexia, and
dyscalculia.” Some people can blame it on the teachers. In the book, Defending Standardized Testing, it expresses their opinion about how the teachers need to teach for the test. They state, “caring, effective teachers should want to prepare their students for these future testing situations.” Teachers should be the ones to get the help that the student needs. There are many resources for many different disabilities. They can evaluate students for measures against standards of reliability and validity. With this type of evaluation they must include all legally protected groups that could be tested. Teachers also need to check the fairness for relevant groups. When a student needs to take a test, they must see if they have equal access to resources, instruction, and study tools. The book, Defending Standardized Testing, they believe if you take some of these precautions all students will do great on the standardized test. Teaching for the test can be beneficial. If the teachers just prepare the student for the test then the classroom will not be distracted from “time-wasting” learning activities. The struggle with this is that students vary in the ways they are taught. It is the teachers job to teach with different aspects so each student can retain the information. Teaching for the test is can also become very stressful for younger students. In school, and after school tutor, at Borden Elementary, Bobbie Gourley said on 17 May 2016, she witnessed a child saying “I’m scared I won’t do good enough to pass I-Step.” Standardized testing does not take affect on the students home life says Ms. Gourley. “A student may not know where their food if coming from, or maybe they have a loss of a pet or family member, these outcomes are going to have an affect on their scores. Teachers can teach all they want, but if something tragic happens to the student, they will not retain anything.” Testing has a huge impact on the students and even on the teachers. Third grade teacher, at Amelia Earhart Elementary, Alexandria Butcher pronounced her feelings toward students taking standardized tests on 18 May 2016. “My students could answer the questions if I was standing up there reading the questions out loud and say what it is asking. The test creators do not use the same terminology as we do in the classroom and that stresses my students out.” Mrs. Butcher claims that it is just unfair for the students and there is no reward for them for going though this torturous period of time. Her and her students are aware that the outcome does not affect them but the work put in before the test does. She does not get to teach them what needs to be taught because of the test weighing them down. “This test is used to evaluate the teachers and gives no reward to the students, there needs to be a better way to evaluate teachers” she informed us. It is unfair to the students and teachers. Stressing out the students can cause bad test grades and can cause a decrease in a teachers salary, risk of the school closing, and more stress to the teachers. Researching different sides of standardized tests makes it seem like standardized testing is a harmful thing for students and can be improved. Teachers should not be hounded on for trying to push the students to their best capability. I believe the State Board of Education needs to find a new way of evaluating teachers. Teachers are trained to teach the way that they do and should not have to adjust their schedule to stress their kids out to make them fit State Board of Education standards.
Michele Obama once stated, “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn 't be here. I guarantee you that.” The First Lady is, in other words, to say that standardized testing was a major factor into her life’s outcome and her scores could have potentially not put her in her position of power that she is highly recognized in today’s society. Although standardized tests do play a large role in any college application, standardized testing may not count as much toward one’s college admissions or success because standardized tests are not the only factor toward college applications, these tests only benefit a specific target group of people, and standardized tests are better used for giving insight on one’s
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.
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.
In “Standardized testing undermines teaching,” the author, Diane Ravitch, reviewed a book she authored, The death and life of the great American school system: how testing and choice are undermining education. This review highlights various cons of Standardized testing on the students and educators. She states that standardized testing and the use of incentives to motivate students and educators have failed to meet the set goals. Although the author was at the forefront of advocating for this system, she is now opposed to it and sceptical of the use of incentives to motivate teachers. She also reviews the role of charter schools in perpetuating classism. She states that standard tests and the use of...
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.
Standardized testing is a down fall to many students but also an opportunity for many others. Standardized testing has its pros and its cons. It can be the make it or break it factor into getting into colleges you are hoping to attend or the scholarships you want to earn. Some people may have their opinions about the test, whether they hate it or not but the fact is that it’s here to stay.
As child growing up some of the frightful memories include a visit to the dentist; an evil man with scary drill whose solve purpose is to hurt you or the first day in elementary school you finally leave all behind the cozy classrooms and nap times of kindergarten and enter the big leagues. All of these are considered a cakewalk compared to standardize testing. Since the start of elementary school students in the United States are taught to test. In many instances students are held back or placed in remedial classes because of lower grades. But many don’t realize that some students are not great at testing taking and because of the lower grades some educators believe that these students are lower achievers. This leads to lower self-esteem and encourage students to drop out in later years. Also students are forced to memorize information merely as facts without sparking their creativity or enhancing their knowledge.
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.
Educational tools enable students to learn and allow teachers to asses these students, but how is evaluating these students in the same way and even lowering their marks and averaging them out a representation of how well that students are doing and what they are truly capable of achieving. 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”.
Throughout my educational career, I remember taking standardized exams since I was in second grade. My experience with the standardized test was never a pleasant one. At a certain point, I thought that it would hinder me from going on to the next grade, graduating high school and going to a college of my choice. I always felt that standardized test did not measure my actual intelligence and was frustrated with the concept that comparing students to others, by giving all students a basic multiple choice test, is enough to measure how well each child would do throughout the school. After I had started understanding the ranking system, I started doubting my ability to keep up with my peers, not just in my school but the state. The first exam that
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.
Standardized testing in the United States is not always a common practice. In the Mid-1800s, Horace Mann, an education reformist, developed a test to administer to a group of students. Its purpose was to determine how students were performing at their current level and whether they were capable of proceeding to a higher level of education, although the student’s success on the test had no negative repercussions. These tests were a necessity at that time because the idea of public education was still being molded and these tests were the only means by which student progress could be measured. Within 35 years of the first recorded examination in 1845, testing became the factor which determined whether students were able to be promoted to the next grade.
Education in the United States has dramatically changed over the last decade with the incorporation of the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB), signed by the former president George Bush. According to the Education Week Newspaper, this educational reform was originated from the "concern that the American education system was no longer internationally competitive," therefore it was urgent to create a regulation that could improve education and upgrade the academic proficiency in the nation (Klein). For this reason, The NCLB promised to create an equal opportunity of learning to all children in America by establishing a standardized system that would improve the education in the country. For instance, besides the different school regulations and
In our statistically driven world, comparing one thing to another is what we humans gravitate towards. Whether it be an apgar test to a minutes-old newborn, a rankings list for the world’s best colleges, or a restaurant star-ranking system, humans often force objectified statistics onto complex and subjective situations. Unfortunately, this stressful practice is imposed the most onto young students, whose numerous, dynamic years of learning and growing are often crammed into a score out of 36. Given the obscene pressure and stakes this has on a student’s reputation, standardized tests need to be exactly what they claim to be: standardized. Although more restrictive policies should be implemented, time extension opportunities are essential in ensuring a fair chance for all to demonstrate the skills being tested. Only then, is a