Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

Teachers and school administration, have you ever wondered whether the standardized tests you are giving your students is accurately displaying their knowledge? Or whether the material on the test is actually required to know to be successful in each student’s life? It is estimated by Valerie Strauss, from the Washingtons Post, that between kindergarten prep and 12th grade the average American student takes over 112 standardized tests (Strauss, Valerie). This means that students are going through the stress, headaches, and time consuming agony to take around eight or nine tests each school year on top of the tests within each class. People often believe that standardized test correctly represent a student’s academic knowledge and learning and

There are far more better ways to assess and measure the learning of a student. I had something similar in mind with what Kohn had stated in his book. He thought that projects or assessment assignments or tasks would help demonstrate a student’s application of knowledge. Students could talk to their teacher and explain everything they have learned in a unit or chapter, to show the teacher the child has some understanding of what was taught. Kohn also thought that student led conferences would help show parents the students academic learning more efficiently (Kohn 41-43??). In the article “How Standardized Testing Damages Education” there are several more suggestions on how we could better assess a student’s academic achievements. The article states that a teacher could write a letter describing the work of a student, their behavior, and could also include some of the student’s past school work. Another way would be to assess a student's ability to learn useful things and apply them to real life activities (“How Standardized Testing Damages Education”). I believe that these all would be better alternative ways to demonstrate the learning and understanding of a student better than that of a standardized