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Standardized Testing America

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The wide-spread use of standardized testing in the American education system is not helping anybody. Standardized testing was designed to help schools see how their students were performing academically in standard way. The NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act made standardized testing tied to school funding. It made the government reward or punish schools based on test scores. It was made to help students stay on track. Instead, standardized testing is lowering the quality of education in the United States. Standardized testing puts stress on students, forces schools and teachers to “teach to the test”, and has not helped the United States in worldwide education rankings. Since schools and teachers are punished or rewarded based on the test scores …show more content…

One reason for the creation of the NCLB Act was that the American education system was not internationally competitive. The United States wasn’t producing as well educated students as other countries. When the NCLB Act was signed into law in 2002, the United States was ranked 20th in the world for math on the newest (from 2000) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results. In the newest results (from 2015), the U.S. was ranked 40th. Similarly, the U.S fell from 15th to 24th in science, and from 16th to 24th in reading, all over the same fifteen-year period (2000-2015). Some of the higher rated schools, such as Finland, have very few or no standardized tests. Creating more standardized tests doesn’t create a better education system. While a few standardized tests over a student’s school career can be helpful to make sure students are on track and teachers are educating their students, the United States education system has far too many standardized tests. The U.S should reduce the number of tests given to students each year. The current amount of testing stresses students and forces teachers to “teach to the test”. Standardized testing has not and will not improve the American school

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