Standardized Testing In Schools

Yawar Baig once said, “Teaching is not about answering question but about raising questions—opening doors for them in places that they could not imagine.” With twelve years of grade schooling, I have noticed teachers who will go to all ends to make sure students are learning and then other who could care less. However, the ineffectiveness of those teachers have over shadowed the success of effective teachers. This had led to many states depending on state regulated test to determine the evaluation and efficiency of a teacher. Without a doubt, standardize test do play apart in the education growth, but should it be the deciding factor in whether a teacher is considered good or bad? This ongoing problem leads us to the age old question, should

The answer is very simple, no. Several educators are irrationally accused of teaching to the ways of standardized test. Although their intentions are not to “teach to the test”, the pressure for their students to achieve specific scores results in teaching to the test, whether they wanted to or not. According to the article “Teachers to the Test” by Amanda M. Fairbanks, when everybody is reduced to numbers, it doesn’t create a good atmosphere. It doesn’t help teachers teach, and it doesn’t help children learn. Sheri Lederman, an eighteen year veteran teacher at Elizabeth M. Baker Elementary School in Great Neck, New York was one affected by the evaluations. After just receiving her annual evaluation, Lederman went home from work and announced to her husband that she was ready to quit. In just over one year, Lederman’s scores dropped a drastic thirteen percentage points. A statewide teaching ranking system had been implemented changing the way educators are assessed. With forty percent of her evaluations being the state assessment test, the rest was

Several teachers have gave up the gift to teach to pursue other careers fields. According to “‘Live with Kelly and Michael’ Top Teacher is quitting: I can’t ‘drill ‘em and kill ‘em’” an article by Valerie Strauss, teachers feel as if the standardized test have stripped them of their creativeness due to the “drill and kill” of testing. Ninth grade intervention specialist, Stacie Starr said, “It is very upsetting. We are becoming presenters of materials and not teachers. They have taken away all of our creativity in the classroom…” (Strauss). Starr stressed to great detail on how testing was completed unfair and inconsiderate to students across America. As a special educations teacher, her ninth grade students are being forced to take the Common Core PARCC test even though her students read at a fourth and fifth grade reading level. Will special education teachers like Stacie Starr be penalized due to learning disabilities that are out of their