The Controversy Of Standardized Testing In Schools

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

The article discusses how teachers are discovering that the No Child Left Behind idea is flawed, developmentally unfitting, lacking funding, and leaving more students, educators, and schools behind before the bill was passed. Later the article presents a short history about educational testing, investigates the argument of teaching to the test, and focuses on subgroups of school populations that are negatively affected by No Child Left Behind bill, distinctively students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, minorities, second-language learners, and students with special needs.

“Mostly, they worry that common standards would reduce teaching to only a small range of testable information and would not produce the knowledge, flexibility and creativity needed. Buttressing this concern, the Center on Education Policy found that the emphasis on test-based accountability has indeed already narrowed the curriculum” (Mathis). Standardized testing has become a controversial topic recently throughout the nation because of the harsh, confined lessons teachers are being forced to give. According to a news article written by the New York Times, teenagers nationwide are taking anti-depressants to cope with test-related stress and teachers would rather retire than teach when the government seems to value testing over learning. Teachers

Standardized testing is used throughout every grade in school today. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of standardized testing to access students’ progress. Many teachers feel that they must teach to the test and parents feel that their child is spending too much time testing and not enough time learning. According to a new study, preschools spend an average of 4.8 hours, third graders spend an average of 20.6 hours, eighth graders spend an average of 25.3 hours, and eleventh graders spend an average of 22.5 hours on testing (Layton, 2015). Although, some parents, teachers, and schools feel that standardized testing have a purpose and show the growth of their schools and classrooms, many parents and teachers are fighting to have standardized test limited or removed from schools, because they feel that standardized testing are becoming harmful to students.

In an attempt to create educational reform, pieces of legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have been passed with the hopes of making schools “accountable” to the children within their walls. Although this piece of legislation was eventually overturned its effects are still being felt within Americas public schools and it is estimated that this generation will be less literate than their precursors (Kohn). Although well intentioned, the NCLB failed schools, teachers, and most importantly students all as a result of one key aspect of the law: high-stakes testing. According to the No Child Left Behind act, all states are required to give standardized tests to their students in the hopes of holding teachers accountable for their scores and ensuring all students become “proficient.” These tests have come to determine whether or not students can graduate, how and what teachers teach, as well as how much funding a school will receive. High-stakes tests can make or break a school, but with all this pressure are kids really showing sizable gains in areas like math, science, or reading? The answer is no and time and time again

The use of standardized testing is on the rise, with the intent of comparing the knowledge levels of large amounts of students. But is it a true and fair indicator of students overall knowledge?some may argue that it is the least expensive and most convenient way to compare mass amounts of students b having everyone test on the same data at the same time and under the same circumstances. Many believe that students learn and even test take at varying levels and performance is not consistent on any given day. Meaning ,students may have the exact same knowledge base, but some students simply are better at test taking, whereas others do not perform well under pressure and this may potentially affect the test results.

Testing Our Schools was discussing the controversial topic of the newly introduced state testing that President Bush was trying to pass. President Bush was calling for higher standards in the academic world and wanted to hold schools and teachers accountable for the materials they are teaching students. This act would be known as “No Child Left Behind.” These standards where called “standards of learning” or SOLs. The documentary went to schools in Virginia to ask teacher how they felt about the standards that would be implanted in their schools. Many of the teachers seemed in favor because it gave them a guide on what to teach and how to teach the subjects. However, other teachers at schools in low income neighborhoods were opposed to the testing because students faced certain obstacles that would hinder true test score results. Many of America’s business sector was in favor of having this program in place because it made sure students were learning the information that would be needed later on in life. Although, these standardize test came with some glaring issues that made standards of learning a controversial topic among American society. Many people believed that the test were not an accurate indicator of a students true intelligence and the margin of error on these tests left many students being misclassified. The belief was, students were not actually learning the material but rather the main focus was to teach these students how to pass a test. These test sometimes

Education is saturated with standardized testing. Standardized testing is throughout your whole educational career, starting with the MAP test and ending with an ACT or SAT test. The curriculum in the classroom is molded to fit test taken by each student while teachers teach to the test. According to Council of Great City Schools, “as of 2016, the average student in America takes a staggering 112 mandatory standardized tests before graduating high school.” Standardized testing is defined as same test student take under similar conditions with criteria for multiple choice or short answer questions. College are examining on test score to decide student’s future in education. “Unfortunately we cannot accept you due to your lack of testing ability” is the last thing any college student wants to hear. High School students, who already have responsible for choosing a college, a career, and focussing on school work, have to focus on one more thing that should not even be factored to college, standardized test like the ACT or SAT. If you score high enough on the MAP test, you have opportunities to achieve in advanced classes in future classes that could help for college. If

When I was in grade school there was a large push for us students to excel in standardize testing. In recent years I have been more and more aware that these tests are not so much about us as students. What it is about is the school proving that their little education community is superior to others in a fight for funding. That’s not to say that the public school system is poor, or that I feel I have been done a disservice by attending public school. I loved my high school, I am just simply concerned with how much conformity was encouraged in that community. I remember, vividly, being told by one of my English teachers that my opinion was wrong because it did not match the opinions expressed in the text book. This was one of the most extreme

From first grade to college, every student faces the nightmare: a test. The groans, rolled-back eyes and anxiety are all symptoms of a test-stressed generation. However, high school students are impacted the most because colleges do not look at test scores comprehensively. They only look at the high scores and ignore the low scores. Ever since the College Board was created in 1899, colleges have used the Board’s number one test to assess a high school student’s abilities. The colleges are only concerned with their reputation, not about the quality of a student’s academic strength.

Standardized tests have become an educational phenomena throughout schools in the United States. The United States, schooling system relies on the administration of standardized tests to measure students academic performance and progress while they are obtaining a K-12 education. James Popham, former president of the American Educational Research Association defines standardized testing, as “any test that is administered, scored, and interpreted in a standard, predetermined manner”. The standardized testing system, is utilized as a guideline in not only assessing a student's comprehension of the subjects taught in the classroom, but also serves to evaluate how well teachers are able to teach their students. High stake exams have come to define

Getting an education is the main goal for everyone, although it is easy to obtain there are some obstacles to it. One of the main obstacles students face at the beginning of their education is standardized tests. Schools have started to adopt this type of tests as their main way to evaluate students’ intelligence and teachers’ effectiveness to educate the students. The way students used to learn has changed, in order to get them ready for the tests they have to spend much of the school time preparing for it instead of learning something they can use in their future life. According to Bruce Jacobs in No Child Left Behind's Emphasis on 'Teaching to the Test' Undermines Quality Teaching, a 2007 study by the University of Maryland teachers were put in much pressure and had thoughts to teach the test […]. This shows that teachers have also been affected by standardized tests in a way they have more pressure to make students pass. Having teachers ‘teach the test’ means their way to educate has been corrupted. In most cases when teachers’ ability to educate has been changed leads them to practice methods not convenient for scholars. One of these methods is memorization, in Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea by Hani Morgan describes how students start to adapt to an “inferior type of learning, based on memorization and recall students gain when teachers

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

Quite a few opportunities are offered by different groups interested in finding the United State’s brightest children, but is selecting them by IQ tests and school grades still appropriate? IQ tests have long been outdated, originally devised to test those below average intelligence, not those who are far above. School grades are often also not an indication of someone who is an exceptionally bright student, preventing students that are maybe not the brightest in school for various reasons but may be bright in their own particular talent, including art, music, or a variety others.

“One teacher, distressed by being singled out, committed suicide days after the individual teacher results were released from the standardized testing scores” (Kuehn 69-75).The amount of stress from standardized testing results is unbelievable especially if it will determine your fate as a teacher. Students were told to take a test and the results would determine if the teacher stays or if the teacher was fired (Kuehn 69-75). Due to unbalanced standardized test scores, schools should not use standardized tests as the only piece of reflective information.