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Effectiveness of standardized testing
How Standardized Testing Damages Education
How Standardized Testing Damages Education
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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 …show more content…
Rizga shows her understanding of her audience through the use of appeals, reinforcement of thesis, and lead-in to the introduction. Rizga demonstrates strong audience awareness by telling the story of Maria, a Salvadorian girl newly arrived to the United States. Rizga writes about Maria’s struggles in her country as well as the struggles she was faced with upon arriving to the United States, which appeals to the audience’s emotions. Rhee, however, has a very weak appeal, “As a parent, I understand that problem.” Unlike Rhee, Rizga immediately begins her article with Maria being bullied in school for not knowing English. Rhee, on the other hand, just simply states that she is a parent with a daughter of her own. All throughout Rizga’s article, she makes sure to reinforce her thesis. Rizga does this by saying that the school “is among the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in the country.” She also states that the school has an 88 percent college acceptance rate and asks the question “Was this what a failing school looked like?” Rhee, however, is constantly contradicting herself which therefore goes against her argument. Unlike Rhee, who contradicts herself, Rizga is constantly connecting everything she says with her thesis. Rhee, on the other hand, completely contradicts herself when saying “Standardized tests don’t accurately measure how students are learning and many other indicators exist. That’s absolutely correct.” Here, she is agreeing with the other side of the argument but her thesis in the beginning clearly states that she believes standardized tests are an efficient way to measure how students are learning. Rizga demonstrates strong audience awareness by quickly beginning her article with the story of Maria. Rhee begins her article by giving many weak analogies. Rizga starts her article with the words of someone telling Maria to speak English, but clearly she does not know the language.
When informing the readers that her fans would often write not only about her work but also about “… [her] youthful indiscretions, the slings and arrows I suffered as a minority…” (Tan 1), this bothered Tan to an extent because she By educating herself she was able to form her own opinion and no longer be ignorant to the problem of how women are judge by their appearance in Western cultures. By posing the rhetorical question “what is more liberating” (Ridley 448), she is able to get her readers to see what she has discovered. Cisneros also learned that despite the fact that she did not take the path that her father desired, he was still proud of all of her accomplishments. After reading her work for the first time her father asked “where can I get more copies” (Cisneros 369), showing her that he wanted to show others and brag about his only daughters accomplishments.
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.
...ry curricular diversity, test developers have to create a one size fits all test. These test developers however, can’t really pull it off. This leads to some questions in a standardized test that are not necessarily aligned with the curriculum in a particular setting. An important study done in 1993 in Michigan regarding this issue on standardized tests concluded that 50 to 80 percent of what was measured on standardized tests was not covered in the textbooks for that particular curriculum. Based on this study, it can be concluded that if the content of standardized tests is not addressed in the textbooks, topics that are covered on the test may not have been covered in that particular classroom setting This is an unfair flaw in test design which can result in lower test scores not enabling the tests to accurately measure the students’ learning achievement.
"Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Opposing Viewpoints. Gale, 2012. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
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
...logies and always received poor scores on the language portion of standardized tests. Her teachers always encouraged her to be a math or science major, since she had scored much better on those subjects. She rebelled and is now a very successful and influential writer. This points out an obvious flaw in depending on standardized tests.
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
Whatever the reason may be, many people, including Price, Kahl, and Ayers do not support standardized testing. These authors all have one opinion in common; they are all against testing for the sake of the children, because of the pressures kids already endure without the pressures of testing. They all claim that tests may be an unfair way to rank children in the world today due to: teachers not teaching children the right material in preparation for the test, family upbringing, and even worrying the children would affect the test results. As Ayers indicates, one single test could not determine where a child stands in the business world, due to the fact that the test analyzes specific topics on school and nothing about their personality or more personal traits.
How many of us really believe that a child's intelligence, achievement, and confidence can be represented adequately by standardized tests? How can any distribution curve classify all children? What about all we have learned about children?s growth and their response to education? Few teachers and parents would accept that a single test score could define any child (Russel, 2002). We must ask if these tests address the educational concerns of teachers and parents and do they provide useful information about individual children or the class. Almost all teachers feel pressure to teach to the tests and feel that tests clearly limit educational possibilities for students (Russel, 2002). We feel it is detrimental to a child's education to enjoy reading. An article reported by the BBC news (2003) entitle...
Standardized testing is a deeply flawed system. The American government continues to throw money at a program that has little or no hope of achieving the goals it set at its inception. The important message is that no test is valid for all purposes and “high stakes” decisions should not be made on the basis of a single test score. Test scores provide only a small picture of student achievement or potential (APA 2014).
Standardized tests are examinations administered to the children of the United States. Some states have exit exams, meaning a student must pass the test to continue or finish their education. Here in Virginia, students are tested from 3rd grade to 8th grade on the Standards of Learning tests also known as the Virginia SOL’s. Students from Kindergarten on up will take the Cognitive Ability Test or Cog AT and Benchmark tests throughout the year. High school students have their choice of taking the SAT’s or ACT’s or if they would like to join the military they will be given the ASVAB. Unfortunately, these tests are not completely to blame for poor results. The education standards are different in each case; some areas like in South Carolina depend on federal aid and grants to function. Their practice is the lower the grade of the results of the test the more money they will receive. Whereas in Virginia, the lower the score with no improvement the less funding they will receive and if there is no improvement within five years the entire school staff is replaced. From an early age, society has encouraged the practice of examinations from the entry to school to work employment. The real question that needs to be asked is are these tests benefiting the youth in the United States or are they just encouraging them to memorize large amounts of information. In turn, how much are they actually learning and can we as educators, parents and concerned citizens guarantee these children are receiving the best education possible. Testing is necessary but we are over testing our children and slowly removing all of the creativity from them and the teachers. Turning the youth of today into memorizing machines and not comprehending the material that th...
“Standardized tests are defined by W. James Popham, former president of the American Educational Research Association, as ‘any test that’s administered, scored, and interpreted in a standard , predetermined manner.” (ProCon.org, 2011, p. 6) The debate over these tests has become a very hot topic especially since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act. The debate over these tests covers all academic areas and therefore is relevant to the area of children’s literacy. At the core of this debate is the main stance of both sides:
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.
One of the reasons why standardized tests are used is for measuring a child’s scholastic performance. But how accurately do they do this? A standardized test is made up of consistent questions and procedures for scoring and administration. They are always made according to identical rules so the procedures are the same for everybody who takes the tests. They come in many forms: on paper, on computer, questionnaires, etc. These tests are very contentious because many people have different opinions about them. Some critics feel that the tests help parents and teachers act as guides to assist students on expanding their knowledge in a particular subject. They are also needed to enter Ivy- League schools which further explains why international schools and schools in the United States take them. However, most do argue that these tests do not take into consideration a child’s traits and what the child can give. The tests judge students based on their performance on that day, not on their growth as educational participants, and places many in stressful situations due to the amount of studying needed to prepare for the tests. Standardized tests give scores that predict how “smart” a person is, although intelligence comes in many forms. To a large extent, standardized testing is not an effective way of measuring a child’s intellectual potential because it focuses mainly on the performance instead of the child’s growth and it doesn’t take into account the child’s personality and what they have to give. On the other hand, they can be necessary because they act as guides to help parents and teachers aid children on what they don’t have knowledge on in a specific subject.