Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

Imagine a third grade girl about to take her first standardized test. She is nervous about the test because it is not a normal classroom test. Over the past month, her teacher has reviewed everything that she and her classmates have learned the entire year. As she looks around the room, she sees other nervous peers. Unfortunately, standardized tests have grown more frequent in schools at all levels, and “when future educational historians look back at the last few decades of U.S. public schooling, they will surely identify a system in which students’ scores on annual accountability tests became, almost relentlessly, the prominent determiner of a school’s success” (Popham 45). Because people believe that schools do not educate students

According to the discernment of many teachers and parents, students display increased anxiety and stress when they must take state standardized tests. Students think of these tests as more stressful because they do not fit in with the daily routine or curriculum of the classroom (Segool 495). Natasha K. Segool, John S. Carlson, Anisa N. Goforth, Nathan von der Embse, and Justin A. Barterian completed a study that took place in a Midwestern state that demonstrated that twenty-five percent of students, grades three through five, experienced more test anxiety over state standardized tests than regular tests that teachers give in the classroom (Segool 496). This means that about one in every four students in these three elementary grades experiences more discomfort during standardized tests than normal classroom tests. In her work, Deborah Landry found young students especially stress out about standardized tests. One time, she had a little boy come up to her before a test and said, “Mrs. Landry, I forgot to bring my number two pencils! Does this mean that I flunk this test?” (33) His eyes welled up with tears and she gave him two pencils (Landry 33). This anecdotal example demonstrates that some children are so stressed out by the standardized test, that

Standardized tests can determine who will do well in the next phase of life, and they are a better determinate of how a student is doing than a Grade Point Average. They also have three main purposes: comparison among test takers, improvement of ongoing instruction and learning, and evaluation of instruction. Even though all of these are valid points, standardized tests still contain bias, and this fact alone should give people reason to re-examine the trend to emphasize standardized tests. They provide contexts in questions that some groups of people, such as minorities and girls, do not understand. Railside High is one example where this occurs. Also, standardized tests creates unneeded stress on both students and teachers. Students experience anxiety because the test is not a normal test that they take in class on a normal basis. Teachers experience anxiety because they want their students to do well. Also, how well the students do will reflect on how well a teacher teaches. In the future, as W. James Popham stated, people will look back and see that during this time, scores that students receive on standardized tests became the main determinate of a school’s