Jesness elaborates in his third section on a way to, “fix the floating standard,” (44) by allowing for a fixed standard, not just for the best and poorest students but for all the students in general. Nevertheless the education system will allow for a more practical approach to preparing students instead for teaching students information that will only be beneficial for taking a test. Having a fixed standard will allow for a less basic skills approach to studying, as it is currently, but the teachers will now be able to teach more of the important stuff; knowledge that they will take not only throughout the rest of their public schooling days, but also they will be taking it into college as well. For example this fixed standard is a monstrous
approach to new ideas and ways of teaching. One new way we could start would be in English and instead of learning all of the basic skills over again like you have in previous grades, you would learn about important novelists, poets, and writers that wrote for people throughout the ages. An example of this would be the poet William Blake, who is not discussed in school, but had a huge influence on people like Bob Dylan, who we more taught about in school. Jesness apprises the readers that parents should be able to put their children in a course without a standardized test if the parents believe that is a trustworthy school. On the other hand parents who aren’t sure that material is being taught will have tests provided to show that their student is learning the course material. Jesness mentions that not only had he falling to the pressure of the government regulated standards, but all other school districts and teacher, also how these standards affected the schools, and the options to take in fixing the standards.
Education is one of the most important tools that society possesses. The right implementation of this tool is one of the greatest ways of assuring the quality of life within a society. The ability to better ourselves, is one of the strongest inherit abilities of the human race. At its most basic definition, education is nothing more than the teaching of ideas. The early stages of schooling instill more attitude and social skills than knowledge. The younger stages of a person's life are usually the most definable years of their lives. As the age and skill level of the student increases, more education is based upon the interest of the student. For society to progress and excel, every generation must learn just a little more. Education is important and the ways that it is tested should show the most accurate measure of achievement. SOL's (Standards of Learning) is the testing I am going to explain, and why it should not be required in high school as a form of measurement of a students achievement.
Standardized testing requires student to answer same or similar questions with given answer choices that are often in multiple choice or true or false form. Dating back from 2200 B.C standardized testing is recorded being used in China ,where people applying for government jobs had to take an examination ,testing their knowledge on confucian philosophy and poetry.During the mid-1800s in Industrial Revolution ,soon after child labor laws were enacted taking children out of farms and factories and putting them into schools the use of standardized test was introduced to America in Boston. Standardized testing was being used to compare schools and teaching quality; Boston’s program was soon adopted nation wide. Types of standardized test including the most common achievement tests and aptitude test. Achievement test measure the progress a student has made academically in a time period. Whereas an aptitude test attempt to predict a student’s ability to succeed academically.Standardized test are used on a large scale because computers can score them quickly, consistently, and inexpensively rather than open ended essay questions which need to be evaluated essay by essay, though essay questions allow for deeper thinking.The purpose for standardized testing is to create a standard on which all students can learn equally,but in “The Real threat to American Schools” by Alfie Kohn, the author claims that idea of standards might not be true. The author makes an interesting point in that if the possibility that all students met the state standards and passed all the tests would those students be considered ‘perfectly educated’ of would the politicians and test takers believe instead that the test was too easy and the standards were too low. B...
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. Rizga better proves her thesis through the use of solid argumentation. Rizga is more
To teach to the test or trust the child; is the question in today’s education. Over the past twenty years state curriculum standards have changed. Teachers need to make the choice on how to teach the children in their classroom. In today’s society where testing runs the educational world, a teacher must decide how to prepare students for standardized testing.
However, in March 2014, College Board announced that the SAT will be redesigned in 2016. The College Board describes this change as “expanding its outreach to low income students and shifting from testing abstract-reasoning skills to evidence based reading, writing and mathematical skills acquired in high school.” Some believe that this is a positive change in higher education. Randolf Arguelles, conversely, is not one of them. As the title of his article suggests, in “The New SAT Will Widen the Education Gap; Everyone Who Takes the Test is Measured against the Same Yardstick. That 's Not True of High School Grades," Arguelles writes that “the new SAT will widen, not narrow, the education gap in the United States.” He explains that with the old SAT, what was important was if you had a strong vocabulary, could make inferences, and apply math concepts, not whether you had excellent teachers or not throughout the years. I agree. Although the new test is being designed in hopes of reliving tension by eliminating costly test preparation and focusing on concepts that should be learned over the course of high school, that may not be the case. The key phrase in the last sentence is “should be learned.” Teaching styles and learning styles vary all throughout the world; they often clash among
There are many various issues about the education system which are controversial today. One of these common issues nowadays are schools concentrating on raising standards to evaluate knowledge for students. Many students have been working extremely hard just to achieve higher scores on tests. However, asking students to do many difficult tasks in their studies, is really not helpful now, is it? That is why Alfie Kohn wrote the article, “Confusing Harder with Better”, showing his dissatisfaction with the current educational system. In the article, he complains against “raising the bar”, meaning since they raised standards, teachers are making students memorize facts for tests instead of engaging intellectually with them. In other words, with
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 ranking of people.
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.
Standardized tests are a tremendous part of most schools’ curriculum in the United States today. These tests are assessments of students’ knowledge on either one or more subjects. Standardized tests are a performance evaluation of students, teachers, and schools due to their importance. A standardized test is distinctive from other tests in two ways. One, it has common questions being answered in the same way and two, it is being scored in a consistent style allowing for comparative performance. Through extensive research Oliver’s and Visone’s statements and overall research have several key differences that shape their own separate arguments. Though their thesis and hypothesis have the same underlying idea that there is a problem with` standardized
The movement toward standardization is mainly concerned with the school district’s responsibility to generate students that are proficient in basic reading, writing and math skills. These skills being the most essential for business transactions, political and professional relations and most every aspect of life in today’s society. The students are assessed indiscriminately by tests structured around what the students are expected to know. The problem is that a student’s test score varies day-to-day.
With a standardized curriculum comes standardized testing. A standardized curriculum limits what students learn. Students master content areas (Cole, Hulley, & Quarles, 2013). Students are not encouraged to go in depth of content knowledge. According to Adler (2013), objectives of the school should be the same for the whole school. To obtain these objectives teachers use lecturing, textbooks, coaching, and supervised practices. Students are not exploring the content beyond what is expected. Teachers are teaching to the test because that is what is expected of them. Students are not growing and exploring with knowledge. Content is watered down and vague for students (Noddings, 2013).
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.
The present-day education system in Ontario has progressed tremendously over the past few decades, but additional improvements can always be crafted. The government you direct has the potential to make revolutionary changes to the education system, which will benefit future generations of students in the long run. The following proposal deals with the topic of standardized testing within secondary schools and the consequences it may bring. Standardized tests are not necessary in secondary schools as they severely impact the mental health of students and subject material is not remembered in the long term. As a result, standardized tests should be removed from the curriculum and instead replaced with more class lessons relating
testing was to standardise the content taught across schools in order to raise standards of
...the pressure of keeping up with other students. Here, they can work at their own pace and figure out a solution that best works for them to understand or solve a problem. One last idea school reform should address in creating an equality of opportunity in public schools would be to set standards and spend more time in the classroom on these important tasks. These standards are put into place to help evaluate one’s progress. It’s important to have some standards in place, but they need to be feasible. To make such standards feasible, the teacher will be able to tailor it so that the standard can be met by the student. Spending a decent amount of time to get students to reach these standards is imperative. Without a sufficient amount of time, students may not be able to grasp and fully understand what is being taught to them resulting in standards not being met.