Standardized Testing Synthesis Essay

Instead of giving children a quality education, “tests are used to make high stakes decisions about whether kids get promoted or graduate, or whether schools lose funding, or teachers lose their jobs, they narrow the focus of what teachers do in classrooms and limit the ability of schools to serve the broader needs of children and their communities” (Karp). The No Child Left Behind Act’s standardized test decides so many factors for teachers and students that it indirectly requires an ample amount of time to prepare for it, which hinders the time spent on giving students a real education. Teachers spend less time on giving students an education and more time on teaching them test-taking strategies in order to meet No Child Left Behind’s standards. The No Child Left Behind Act’s policies only rely “on an annual test, but single tests can be misleading. Every parent knows children have good and bad days” (Rothstein). The No Child Left Behind Act solely bases a school’s performance on a single, annual test. Test scores are not accurate if the results are not retested to ensure its legitimacy. Schools are labeled as a failing school and receive pay cuts for the performance on a single test per year if they are unable to meet proficiency standards. After the school receives punishment for failing to meet NCLB’s standards, it focuses more on the test than the education of its

Anyone who has gone through the public school system in the past 20+ years is familiar with standardized testing. They induce cringing and loathing in students and teachers alike. In 2002 I was 9 years old, enrolled in an urban public school so I too was a lab rat as well as many others to NCLB. I understand now that valuing individual students through standardized tests is a poor means with detrimental consequences and should be replaced with performance-based assessments. Education serves with a specific purpose.

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, standardized testing has been at the center of attention in the educational system. Several schools and teachers have been forced to drill children on the information they will be tested on. Teachers are forced to demonstrate other important topics in order to teach test material. Similar to majority of tests provided in the school system, standardized test have both pros and cons. Generally speaking, standardized testing is a great way to determine a baseline for a child. As Miller (2016) indicated, tests have a multitude of benefits, which include student enthusiasm, peer learning, self-improvement and retention, transfer of learning, student self-assessment, and teacher instructional guidance. Teachers are able to use the data from the standardized tests to build an entire academic plan around the results. Additionally, students and parents are able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each child in order to determine the next steps needed to help bridge any gaps within their academic studies.

Currently, there are around 37 thousands schools in the United States. Each year, there are more than a million students that applying for college institutions (National Center for Educational Statistics). As an university admission office, it is often difficult to select students based on numbers and words that show up on their application without knowing the applicant. Since there are many factors and can impact a student’s high school experience and performance, it is unfair to be comparing every student in the United States with a same standard. In order to minimize these differences, standardized tests were invented along with the No Child Left Behind act in 2001 which enforced all students to participate. Ideally, standardized tests are objective and graded by computer. The test is expected to be evaluating all students with the same standards. While the educators and designers of the standardized tests focus on generating a test that allows them to compare all students fairly, they abandon the fact that all students’ resources and backgrounds are inevitably different. Assuming that all elements of an educational system serve to benefit students’ learnings, standardized testing is an inadequate method of evaluation due to its negative impact on students and teachers’ mindsets, inaccuracy in evaluation of students’ abilities, and the

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

Standardized Testing have been ubiquitous in America for more than 50 years. It originates from China where they used similar test systems to gauge individual’s Confucian philosophy and poetry for government jobs. After No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed in America in 2001 to ensure high quality student achievements through tests (Yell 180-181), the use of these standardized tests rose. Western World

Standardized tests have been around for hundreds of years. The test originated in the 1800’s. The test was created by Horace Mann. The test was to decide how students were mastering their current level of work and whether they should proceed to the next level. There were no negative consequences associated with the tests or scores. After the publication of the Coleman Report (Coleman et al., 1966), which took an in depth look into the education system and analyzed how the education system affected student achievement, the use of standardized achievement tests for accountability became the trend. It was all about everyone involved in the education of a body of students should be held accountable for the learning and teaching of those students. The teachers and others involved had to answer to the political bodies that were providing funding for the education system. In 2001 the No Child Left Behind Act was passed under the administration of President Bush. The act is based on improving instructional outcomes for students with disabilities. The

Recently, the amount of standardized testing in the United States increased drastically. “Students are taking between ten and twenty standardized tests, depending on the grade. A total average of one hundred thirteen different ones by graduation”(Locker). A few years ago the United States, along with other nations, was given a test to assess the academic strengths and weaknesses of each nation and rank them accordingly. When the results were released and the United States was ranked near the bottom, the nation decided to start incorporating more testing through school. Between benchmark, TLI, PARCC, and common core standards, teaching pedagogy changed once again. Standardized testing has had a negative effect on teachers

Although standardized testing has been a partial component of many schools’ curriculums since the 1800’s, its popularity rapidly increased after the “No Child Left Behind Act” was passed in 2002. This Act stated that from that point onward, it was necessary for children in all fifty states to complete some form of a standardized examination annually. But are these tests genuinely an efficient and reliable way of testing a student's knowledge? . Due to the the pressures of having to perform perfectly on standardized examinations, many children and teachers feel the need to game the system, making the results of these tests inaccurate. Not only are the examination results

The No Child Left Behind Act should tremendously be re-examined and amended because the focus on the standardized tests decrease the quality of other subjects not on the tests, the tests are not an efficient tool to make certain that a student is receiving an excellent education and the tests create unnecessary stress for the students, teachers and administrators. The purpose of No Child Left Behind is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a top-grade education. This is a great proposal to strive towards but, legislation plans on achieving this proposal by making schools responsible for their students’ proficiency and to measure their proficiency with the use of standardized tests. After the students take the

Standardized testing has been incorporated in the United States since the mid-1800s. Therefore when the “No Child Left Behind Act” was mandated, the United States began to slip behind the 18th in the word. With this failures in the education system, it has been remotely blamed on the teacher quality, tenure policies, rising poverty levels, and the increase pervasive use of standardized testing.

Over 50 million students attended public schooling in 2006 (Fast Facts, n.d.), and per Kamenetz (2014), students in the 3rd grade to 8th grade take an average of 10 standardized assessments per year. The Education Testing System defines standardized testing as a test used “to provide fair, valid and reliable assessments that produce meaningful results. Standardized testing…can eliminate bias and prevent unfair advantages by testing the same or similar information under the same testing conditions” (Purpose of Standardized Tests, n.d.). With the introduction of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, these assessments became mandatory. The debate arose about the use, effectiveness, and adverse effects of the tests. Proponents of standardized testing

The use of standardized testing as a quantitative tool of measuring student’s performance took off in 2002 with the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (“Standardized Tests,”2003). Standardized testing was part of the initiative to become the highest academically ranked country in the world, surpassing the current highest ranked country of China. The ultimate goal of NCLB was to ensure that all students score a

First, if a teacher feels that his or her career is dependent on students’ scores on a set of standardized tests, then the teacher will therefore change their educational practices to reflect material covered in the test. The test is intended to sample a body of knowledge that has been taught to the students (Popham, 2001), but when a teacher teaches materials that are reflective of specific items on the test only, then the test as a sample of student work is invalid. Those who are in favor of such testing might say that teaching to the test is not necessarily a bad thing as students are learning according to the standards. This practice of high stakes testing is not adequate for meeting student needs because there is little emphasis on

Standardized testing has been forced across our nation as an assessment of students’ academic achievement. The act, No Child Left Behind, was signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush in an attempt to even the playing field amongst our country’s youths. This law was originally created with the intention of holding states and their schools accountable for the accomplishments of the students. This goal, however, was short-lived due to the unfair, unjust and unnecessary issues the tests have instilled across the country. Standardized testing is an inaccurate assessment. Tests like the ACT and SAT do not effectively judge the student's ability to learn or understand. Instead, they create anxiety and stress for students as well as immense pressure. This is because many colleges take theses standardized tests into great consideration. They have proven to be inaccurate and unfair to our nation’s students.