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How Standardized Testing Damages Education
Effects of standardized testing on students
Overall effects of standardized testing
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Recommended: How Standardized Testing Damages Education
Throughout the course of history, standardized tests have been implemented within the education system. These tests, however, have caused more harm than good, and there needs to be a change. Schools are no longer focusing on educating students on the material for the class, rather teachers are teaching students how to take the test and the information that is within it. Due to this, students have learned that these tests should be taken seriously, creating stress and anxiety the night before and during the test. Standardized testing is used to show how well students are learning; however, not all students are the same. In order to fix the problems that standardized testing has caused, change need to be done. If a system like common core was …show more content…
Although I may know the material, my mind has been more focused on how important the test is rather than remembering the information. Due to this, the correctness of the test suffers. The worrying due to this has caused some teachers to become ill. The education system should be focused on teaching the next generations to become ready for the world, not causing students and staff members to become …show more content…
Their upbringing and knowledge of the world are different. To create a test is on the same level as everyone else is unfair. Students whose family speaks a different language at home would be at a disadvantage. As most standardized tests are in English; furthermore, there is normally an English section and writing section within these tests. Due to this, the students would not be able to provide the same quality work with the same effort as a student who has spoken English their entire lives. The student who is at a disadvantage could have a higher IQ than the other student; however, the student who has not been exposed to English their entire lives would potently perform lower on the test. In the article Standardized Test Aren’t Like T-Shirts: One Size Doesn’t Fit All, Michele Philips states, “You must take into account the entire child when looking at his test scores” (Phillips 52) Test scores do not show the full potential of a student. In order to fully understand someone is that you have to get to know them over a course of time. One test does not demonstrate how smart a person is. Standardize tests are unfair to those who blank on tests or who are not in the same classes as another student. A person could be taking AP classes in high school; however, these classes could have no beneficial value for these tests. Some students are being tested over material that they have never gone over. When they do take these tests, students will not get
Parents and advocates of education can all agree that they want their students to be in the best hands possible in regards to education. They want the best teachers, staffs, and schools to ensure their student’s success. By looking at the score results from standardized testing, teachers can evaluate effectively they are doing their job. On the other side, a proponent for eliminating standardized testing would argue that not all students care passionately about their education and will likely not perform to expectations on the test. However, receiving the numerical data back, teachers can construe the student’s performances and eliminate the outliers of the negligent kids. Teachers can then look at the individual scores and assign those outliers to get the help they need in school. This helps every student getting an equal chance at education. Overall, taking a practice standardized test can let a teacher look at individual questions and scores and interpret what they need to spend more time on teaching. A school also can reap the benefits from standard testing to ensure they are providing the best possible education they can. The school can look at the average scores from a group and hold the teacher accountable for the student’s results on the test. The school can then determine the best course of action to pursuit regarding the teacher’s career at the school. By offering teachers and schools the opportunity to grow and prosper, standardized testing is a benefit for the entire education
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.
Standardized tests are biased to certain students whether it is race, or even how much money the parent(s) earn. According to Standardized Testing and Its Victims by Alfie Kohn, the tests are a lot easier for children coming from richer communities like Dublin for example, then Cleveland where funding is scarce (Kohn, 2000). It is not just a rich and poor battle it also is a battle with students and regional or language barriers. According to Uyen Zimmerman, my former math instructor from Dublin Coffman, explained English as a second language students interpret asked questions phrased strangely to them differently than a student whose primary language is English. For example, she said there was a question on the ACT that asked a question about folding pizza and an ESL student thought that it meant putting pizza into a folder. Another example is asking students about black ice when students in states such as Hawaii and Louisiana, have never seen or heard of black ice (Zimmerman, 2014). I agree with her completely. All standardized tests are playing with what the creators of the test think is a “standard” and testing all students across America with the exact same questions.
Standardized testing assesses students, teachers, and the school itself, which puts a great deal of pressure on the students. High scores show that the school is effective in teaching students, while low test scores make teachers and schools look as though they are not teaching the students properly. This is not always the case. There are teachers who do teach students what they need to know to pass the test, but their students are still unprepared. Although teachers try to improve instruction, student performance is still variable to other factors that the school cannot control.
Standardized tests are very common throughout the United States. They are used to measure students’ academic performances in school. These tests vary from state to state in all grade levels. However, these tests are believed to be biased towards those students who come from higher-class neighborhoods, simply because they have more educational resources. “The absence of standards virtually guarantees stratified resources and access to knowledge, based upon income, color of skin, and the community and neighborhood in which one lives” (French, 2003). The resources in the suburban areas differ from those in the urban areas, because of the gap within the difference of incomes. Families living in suburban neighborhoods have a bigger income, which enables them to have more resources than those living in urban neighborhoods. Most educational resources come from taxes, which plays a big part in the gap between urban and suburban neighborhoods.
Standardized tests should not be used to measure student proficiency. These tests are becoming much more challenging and high stakes, resulting in a significant amount of stress and anxiety in students. Standardized testing has become a huge weight on students which is leading to test anxiety. Jasmine Evans writes in her article “Problems With Standardized Testing,” from Education.com about critics of the No Child Left Behind, an act passed in 2001 one under the administration of George W. Bush, who say that there is a lot of pressure on teachers, students, and parents, and school officials as a result of these tests. They say the pressure to...
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.
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.
Standardized tests are designed to show you and the teachers where you are as far as learning skills go. They have pros and cons, but in the end, they are just there to help the education system. And they determine how far in life you will go. Meaning, you have to take standardized tests to get into some universities and one of the requirements to graduate high school is to pass the standardized tests. So, no matter how much parents, students, or even teachers think the standardized tests are unfair, they are only there to help us and we need them in order to make sure we are getting the education that we deserve.
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.
Standardized tests are used to evaluate a student’s performance, however, tests do not take external factors into account. This already means that tests are often inaccurate methods of measuring a students academic potential. Also, the tests do a disservice to students as they evaluate their proficiency at a time of testing, rather than their growth and improvement over the course of the year. The tests have become an outdated method of challenging students and only have negative impacts at this point. The tests develop high levels of stress in students, which is not healthy for an individual during the most important development years of their lives. Eliminating these tests will assist students in the long run as they can accommodate more time towards learning information rather than stressing over a single test. By replacing tests with more in-class lessons students will be free of constant stress and still learn the curriculum. Research shows that students are unable to remember information on standardized tests in the long run, therefore, by spending more time learning and understanding information, students are able to have a better understanding of topics. Therefore, by removing standardized tests students will be provided with a better, more effective, and fair educational
Students in high school are tested on a variety of subjects varying from math to science to english to history. One test is supposed to gauge all of the information the student has learned. This test is called the ACT. The ACT website says, “The ACT is accepted by all four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The questions on the ACT are directly related to what students have learned in high school courses.” How the student scores on the test will depend on what college the student gets into. A low ACT score may leave little to no colleges interested in the student. The ACT test is an inferior way to test high school students knowledge because it does not include specific needs of the student.
Did you know that America has slipped from 18th place to 31st in the world ranking for math in 2009? Did you know that in 2011 the Secretary of Education stated, “...it was possible that 82% of US schools could be failing at the end of 2012.”,? What is the root of these terrible devastations from our US education?, it is standardized testing. The problem arising in US is that the school systems are requiring students to complete many standardized tests in order to be measured on the basis of improvement in education and/or to be accessed by different institutions/ universities for acceptance into the programs available. But that is the cause of misconceptions that students are not improving in their education. Students will be stressed out
Standardized tests are just one of the tests where many students, including myself, do not show the true knowledge. These tests are meant to determine what a student has learned in the classroom while the data (results) are compared to all students across the nation. How can this be a fair way to decide if the student understands the content being learned, or determine if they understand the material learned? There are many factors that come into play when one is taking the test; they may not be the best test takers therefore they will not do as well on the test. When looking back at my own high school education, I did very well in class on a day to day basis, however, when it came time to take a test, my anxiety would get the best of me and I would not perform to the best of my abilities.