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Vocational education vs college education
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Plenty of schools focus on the scores that come from standardized testing. Though standardized testing is not going to help a student get to where they need to be in order to gain their career. In fact, standardized tests are mainly being used to measure a teacher’s ability to teach (Manalo 1). Why are schools basing their curriculum on standardized test scores rather than teaching vocational education courses that will help students later on in their lives? There are many different vocational courses which include; nursing, food ethics, computer solving, office management, and even cosmetology. Give high school students vocational classes or let the school system crumble. Vocational courses better prepare students for the years to come. Vocational courses prepare and teach and create leaders and are well rounded. Every student deserves to have an opportunity at success and vocational classes will organize them in the manner they need to be prepared. These classes narrow one’s focus so they are able to discover what they want to pursue for a living. (Ziliak 1). Vocational classes open up “doors of opportunity.” Cannot use the excuse that teaching vocational education in schools would lower the chances of getting into college because college credits can be earned through these courses. In 2012 students engaging in the Kokomo career center earned 834 credits from Ivy Tech Community College (Ziliak 2). Apparently vocational classes prepare students for real life situations and put them on the right track towards their dream career.
As many schools use standardized testing to measure their student’s growth they do not realize that standardized tests do not reflect the character of children which will definitely not encourage succe...
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...re a type of authentic learning. Vocational education adds: variety, relevance, and purpose.
Works Cited
James, Howlett. "Industrial Arts: Call It What You Want, the Need Still Exists." Industrial Arts: Call It What You Want, the Need Still Exists. N.p., Mar. 2008. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
Manalo, Taylor. "Civic Issues." Civic Issues Site Wide Activity RSS. Civic Issues, 1 Apr. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
Watkins, Bill. "Do Standardized Tests Raise Dropout Rates?" Newgeography.com. New Geography, 16 Nov. 2011. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
Jorgenson, Olaf. “What We Lose In Winning The Test Score Race.” Principal 91.5 (2012): 12-15. Education Research Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.
Ziliak, Lindsey. “In Vocational Courses, Ind. Students Get Early Glimpse Of Careers.” Community College Week 25.14 (2013): 11. Education Research Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
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.
Rooks, Noliwe M. "Why Its Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests." N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.
Even with material being taught incessantly, standardized tests can not accurately measure a student’s ability. The tests are “single-target—meaning that every student, no matter what level of achievement or ability, course selection, or cu...
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.
Popham, W. James. "Why standardized tests don't measure educational quality." Educational Leadership 56 (1999): 8-16.
Standardized tests cover certain material, which gives teachers something specific to teach. This is helpful, in that it allows teachers to know exactly what to teach. It also sets up a goal for the teachers, which is to get the students to pass. However, this process leaves something to be desired. Because the test is so important to the future of the students, teachers, and school, helping students to pass test becomes the most important part of their schooling. This restricts the educators from teaching students about things that are more important. College is usually next step for students after high school so it would seem logical that high school prepares them for college, but teachers are so busy preparing students for the test that they are not preparing them for the future. Consequently, students arrive at college ill-prepared, with shallow educations (Gitlin).
Wiliam, Dylan. "Standardized Testing and School Accountability." Educational Psychologist. 45(2). (2010): 107-122. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
In a review of literature regarding the impact of vocational education on student retention, Hill and Bishop (1993) acknowledge that, although there is some evidence that vocational education programs and approaches have succeeded in keeping students in school, other research showed that vocational education enhanced student retention only when it included other components such as work experience.
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.
Peterson, B. & Neill, M. (2014). Alternatives to standardized testing. Rethinking Schools. Retrieved from http://www.rethinkingschools.org/restrict.a sp?path=archive/13_03/assess.shtml
“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.
Solley, B. A. (2012). On Standardized Testing: An ACEI Position Paper. Childhood Education, 84(1), 31-37. Retrieved December 3, 2012, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2007.10522967
Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment’s 2012 results (PISA), the United States has ranked 30th in comparison to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) participating countries. The United States, a country that has once held the ideal for educational standards, has now ranked just slightly above other countries that are just being developed. By using high-stakes test statistics to drive America’s educational standards, classrooms are beginning to lose their meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals. Because of classrooms just teaching the test are beginning to lose the meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals, results of high stakes testing which can be affected by the minutest details, are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency; a better alternative would be by performance based assessments. “Test developers are obliged to create a series of one-size-fits-all assessments. But, as most of us know from attempting to wear one-size-fits-all garments, sometimes one size really can’t fit all.” (Popham, James W.). High stakes tests are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency because educators can not expect to have accurate and precise results in just one sitting for 12 years of learning. Although tests pose an important role in education, they should not be given such high stakes of determining if a student should be rejected from a college “based solely on the fact that their score wasn’t high enough” (Stake, Robert.).