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Overall effects of standardized testing
Negative effects of standardized testing
Negative effects of standardized testing
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For many years, school systems and parents all over America have been asking- does high school testing measure a student’s knowledge fairly, accurately, and do they benefit the student. The tests do not accurately measure a student’s true academic ability. Furthermore, testing does not always fairly measure a student’s knowledge. High-stakes testing only adds stress to a student’s life. Studies have proven that testing is not beneficial to a student’s educational growth. Testing in high school is affected by different factors; therefore results can be unreliable and not beneficial to the growth of students.
A well created test can measure learning and diagnose a student’s weakness (Merrow, 4). In testing, the idea is for the student to get the correct answer on information they know and incorrect answers on the information they do not. However, a testing error may occur. A testing error is when a student gets an answer correct of information they did not actually know or an answer incorrect, they may have actually known (Gellman, 30)The people who create these tests want straightforward measures. However, test designers do not design these tests to measure what a student can do academically (Fusaro, 1). Large testing companies produce tests and sell them all over the country. This causes the test to be not specialized for the school or county and students do not do as well as they could have if the test was specialized (Popham, 4).three possible ways of testing a student’s knowledge exists: multiple choices, answer in essay form, or they are asked to perform a task and then graded on the performance (Merrow, 5). Some tests are designed to assess an individual’s performance, like an achievement test. Others, however, are designed...
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...cause a student’s test results to be false. The student could be simply anxious about the test and can affect the results (testing our schools, 3). In order to get an accurate reading for one student, high-stakes test results need to be combined with class work, portfolios, and teacher evaluations.
High school testing is not beneficial to students and just wastes thousands of dollars to give these tests. Art programs are being dropped because testing is more important and these programs can be beneficial to the student. Also, very important educational decisions are being made from the results of one test. This puts a lot of pressure of the student and can dramatically affect the results. In order to get an accurate, beneficial result, the student must take these high stakes tests but class work, teacher evaluations, and portfolios need to be incorporated as well.
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.
Some students simply do not test well, others try their hardest and still cannot reach the impracticable standards set for them. The individuals who create these tests do not understand the pressures of being a student, or the struggle to answer thirty-five questions in a compressed time period. One test cannot accurately measure the intelligence of a student.
Even with material being taught incessantly, standardized tests can not accurately measure a student’s ability. The tests are “single-target—meaning that every student, no matter what level of achievement or ability, course selection, or cu...
Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.
Almost every person who has graduated from high school has taken the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), which is generally used for college admissions. We all remember the stress of taking a test that could affect our future educational plans. Now due to the “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001, this kind of test is now being administered to children from the 3rd to 8th grades as a way to determine if the school or teachers are educating them properly. High-stakes standardized tests of this nature should not be used to determine the educational abilities of either schools or the teachers.
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.
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.
“One test result is the worth one-thousand expert opinions.” The result of standardized testing can establish many results but do they imply the true capabilities of a student or their ability to study for the test. I will discuss in this paper what the arguments on both sides are for standardized testing.
In the United States of America, Standardized testing has become a way of life for students and children, especially in public schools. Many argue that standardized testing does not measure the students as a whole, takes up valuable classroom time, and creates drastic mental health problems in students and teachers. In recent years, a controversy surrounding the idea of standardized testing has been brought forth as something that needs to be changed or adapted to the growing needs of today’s students and this can be examined when exploring the negative effects, the testing has had on society’s future.
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.
“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.
Stecher, “The net effect of high-stakes testing on policy and practice is uncertain. Researchers have not documented the desirable consequences of testing—providing more instruction, working harder, and working more effectively—as clearly as the undesirable ones—such as negative reallocation, negative alignment of classroom time to emphasize topics covered by a test, excessive coaching, and cheating. More important, researchers have not generally measured the extent or magnitude of the shifts in practice that they identified as a result of high-stakes testing.” Which means that in completion no test is truly valid or reliable for there are too many mistakes to be had by either the test takers or the Test
So what’s the big issue with traditional testing methods? They’ve been instituted for years and no one seemed to have a problem before now. Well, in the past decade, the nation’s citizens have become increasingly compassionate towards students and their individual needs. President George W. Bush has gotten generous praise for his No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 as a result of popular concerns among communities across the country. While the act may still have areas in need of improvement, it illustrates that educators, parents, and students alike have been desirous of reform within school systems. “The number of calls complaining about high-stakes exams coming from parents...are increasing, and is a reason for concern” (Report, 2001). The recent act caters to the actualization that students are different from one another, and in order for teaching and learning to take place in a non-discriminatory manner, adjustments must be made. According to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), “Alternative assessment is any form of measuring what students know and are able to do other than traditional standardized tests. Alternative forms of assessment include portfolios that are collections of students' work over time, performance-based assessments, and other means of testing students such as open-ended essays with no single correct answer, and project work that involves collaboration with peers” (2000). Students learn in many ways. Some learn by listening to lessons and may prefer an environment with the aid of music and rhythm. Others may be visual learners who gather information by looking at photographs or watching videos. There are still others that learn kinesthetic...
Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment’s 2012 results (PISA), the United States has ranked 30th in comparison to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) participating countries. The United States, a country that has once held the ideal for educational standards, has now ranked just slightly above other countries that are just being developed. By using high-stakes test statistics to drive America’s educational standards, classrooms are beginning to lose their meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals. Because of classrooms just teaching the test are beginning to lose the meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals, results of high stakes testing which can be affected by the minutest details, are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency; a better alternative would be by performance based assessments. “Test developers are obliged to create a series of one-size-fits-all assessments. But, as most of us know from attempting to wear one-size-fits-all garments, sometimes one size really can’t fit all.” (Popham, James W.). High stakes tests are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency because educators can not expect to have accurate and precise results in just one sitting for 12 years of learning. Although tests pose an important role in education, they should not be given such high stakes of determining if a student should be rejected from a college “based solely on the fact that their score wasn’t high enough” (Stake, Robert.).
Testing is one of the big issues in our education system. The idea that the whole school curriculum should be planned around tests is a foolish one, if we want to get a quality education that we can actually learn something valuable from. Having students cram empty facts and memorize test answers is not teaching them it is just encouraging more stress and late nights. On some occasions, tests are a necessary evil to see if the student has actually learned anything from what they have been taught, but to gear the whole class a...