The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

Additionally, Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” There are different forms of intelligence that go beyond what our school system measures. Students are not a unit to be measured, and students cannot be assigned a numerical value to identify their intelligence. Students are diverse—they learn at different speeds, and they learn in different ways. Focusing solely on test scores is hurting our students and deviating away from building our society on success and excellence. Critics are slowly realizing the problems associated with standardized tests—they create anxiety, they are extremely biased, and they do not measure the ability to think deeply.

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

Most standardized test do not measure emotional or mechanical intelligence, actually a lot of educators argue that standardized test do not measure comprehension or actual intelligence but rather memorization. While others may believe that standardized testing just needs a few improvements, others believe that it is impossible to have a test that measures accurately the capability of a diverse student population. Today’s schooling depends heavily on the test scores from standardized test. Standardized testing should not have so much weight put on them because they have a negative impact on effective education, students’ self-concept, and learning styles.

Similarly, many teachers, statewide, feel that these exams that no significant value towards a student’s overall intelligence. According to a survey by both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic, of more than ten-thousand public school teachers, this report has found that teachers

Although standardized tests do not accurately represent a student’s performance and future, they do present the opportunity to test an individual’s general knowledge. The tests also give students the chance to test their test-taking efficiency and time management, whether or not the individual is under tremendous amounts of stress. With these assessments, students can rank their performance and improve for future tests.

Standardized tests have caused disagreements all across the U.S. According to http://standardizedtests.procon.org/, though they don’t improve most student achievements, it does improve positive effects in 93% of students. Hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents around the U.S are very against Standardized Tests. The teachers opt against the tests for the simple fact of they are evaluated from the results of their students. Parents opt because the tests end up stressing out there children. Standardized testing teaches students to take tests. The average student takes about 113 tests from kindergarten to 12th grade.

However, standardized tests having such a major impact on students’ placement adds stress and pressures students to focus on memorizing things rather than actually learning them. This pressure causes students to be stressed and anxious. Alfie Kohn affirms that, “the more that anxiety is likely to rise and the less valid the scores become.” Tests are causing anxiety in students to rise, resulting in test scores being an “inaccurate” measurement of students’ knowledge. These test are not an accurate form of measurement, as some people may think. Kohn acknowledges that, “These tests care only about whether the student got the right answer..” These tests overlook the steps students took to get to their answer, so it is not known whether students had no idea about the answer or if they were close to the answer (Kohn, 5). Standardized tests should not be a major focus on students’ academic career so students’ can focus on learning skills rather than being

Many standardized tests aren’t testing the students on what they’re being taught, but they are testing them on what the state might assume they are learning. When a student takes a regular test, they have been preparing for a while and know the material, but you never know what will be on a standardized test. You can not prepare for something when you don’t know what it is. For example, on MAPS tests, every student is on a different level and no one has the same question. It’s like if in class you are learning that 5 X 5 = 25 and on the test it might be “If X = 9, than what is 13X +

Even though there are many downsides to standardized testing there are still viable reasons why they are still being used today. One of the main reasons includes the easy and quick access of testing students. Standardized testing allows schools to quickly access a large amount of students at one time. This is also one of the cheapest ways to tests such a large crowd due to machinery that grades which results in low tests costs for students. These tests also help by setting a national curriculum for all high school teachers to teach in schools. “It provides guidelines for curriculum. Standardized tests give teachers a structure of what needs to be taught. This helps keep classroom material consistent across the country” (“Pros and Cons of

“ I want my kids classrooms back” says many parents (Deutermann). School standardized testing is taking up so much time it is taking time away from students learning time in the classroom. Taking the many portions of standardized test is not benefiting the students. The point of standardized tests in schools to get measure of a student’s knowledge. Education plays a big role in the assessments. Education is the process of gaining knowledge, or different skills and attitudes. The tests are also a way to determine a teacher 's work ability. This topic is relevant to us because we are the ones that are taking the assessments, and teachers are the ones that have to help prepare the students for the standardized test.

Diane Ravitch once said, "sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds" (Diane Ravitch). This quote shows that standardized testing does not meet the needs of all students, only a select few, who may not even be the brightest. A standardized test is an exam that determines a student's achievement, and aptitude over the course of years. An aptitude standardized test determines how well a student will perform after receiving some sort of education. For example, the ACT test you take your junior year of high school. An achievement standardized test determines how a student is performing and evaluates the schools effectiveness, similar to the AZMerit test. These tests cover math, science, language, and reading and was

The first reason is that standardized test are unreliable. Different states have different standards and take different test, so the questions aren't all the same. The questions are not always worded correctly. Sometimes they use challenging vocabulary. Other times, they aren't over things that you need to know. Standardized testing is unreliable.

Standardized tests are one of major steps that helps students get admitted to college. For more than 50 years in the United States, standardized testing has been a “scourge to student life” and pressured students to do their best. Questions that are designed for standardized tests are based on finding an individual’s aptitude to determine how they can solve problems in the real world. With lurking opinions of whether standardized testing should continue to be enforced or abolished, standardized testing has made an impact to students around the country by setting an educational background.

Standardized testing has been around since the mid 1800’s. Even though testing has been around for a long time it is still debated whether or not it should precisely “score” students. Students have been subjected to standardized tests frequently through their years in school due to laws which have been passed by Congress. Decisions about the evaluation of schools and students are recurrently made by government authority and are often not in the best interest of teachers, students, or their classroom environments.

Standardized test prevents the students from thinking critically and creatively. The pressure created by the standardized test which is administered in a closed room in which a student is not even allowed to move is destroying students’ creativeness. As stated in the article, “Becoming an expert in the skills required for taking multiple-choice tests may crowd out the skills needed for other life challenges --namely, those required for creative and wise thinking” (Sternberg). Since standardized tests do not give credits for creativity, students