Arguments Against Standardized Testing

Improved Essays
Throughout the United States today, standardized testing stands as an assessment that every child dreads beginning at the third grade and continuing until they are seniors in high school. Nonetheless, what does this test bring for those students? Does it bring unlimited wealth, a respectable future, a hidden treasure? Unfortunately, standardized testing does not bring any of those items, however, it does show teachers what their students are both succeeding in and failing at. When it comes to standardized testing for myself, I am not an enthusiast of it, which is why I have carefully chosen this topic to acquire an additional understanding on why it is required for all students. After much inquiry and analysis, I have found Radhika Viruru, a Clinical Associate Professor in Early Education with the College of Education at Texas A&M University, who wrote an article which talks about how standardized testing is discerning for young diverse children. On the other hand, Geoffrey Canada, an American educator, social activist and author, talked in a Ted Talk about how our schools are failing and that enough is enough. …show more content…
Enough is Enough!”, he talks about how children of all ages need support throughout their schooling career however they do not receive it. Canada lives in Harlem, New York, which means there are numerous children with diverse backgrounds. One of the major dynamics that Canada brings up is how those students who do not receive a passing score on standardized tests do not obtain the suitable assistance that they need for their teachers do not gaze at their scores until it is much too late. Although there stood much glee while Canada was speaking, much of what he had said was accurate. At the conclusion of his feature on Ted Talk, he started talking about how efficacious his high school students ended up being due to all of the support they had

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Standardized Testing is becoming mandatory in schools throughout the United States. Standardize test is any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers. Almost every teacher, parent and student have an opinion on the subject. Herbert J. Walberg “Standardized Testing is a Good Way to Measure Student Learning,” and Don W. Hooper “Standardized Testing and Assessment improves Education,” agree that standardized testing is effective and will improve the performance in schools, in teachers, and in students. While Walberg relies more on logical appeals and Hooper on emotional ones, they both have very little reliable sources to provide to their arguments.…

    • 1300 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article “Set Your Own Standards”, the author c32pong makes a very effective argument about how standardized test are not successful. The author states these points: standardized test do not measure the knowledge of a student and is an unreliable way of measuring student performances, it creates a grade conscious mindset and it also pressures educators. This article is about how standardized testing is used in many schools and colleges around the United States. Standardized test requires everyone who is participating in the test to answer the same set of inquiries.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    At some point throughout a student's school career, students often find themselves asking the question “Do we really need to take standardized tests?” Students often question why these standardized tests are important and why they are forced to take them. Most educators follow a strict education guideline so each student is prepared for any standardized test they must take. Education is revolving around these tests, but there is more to education than just test taking. There is also a social aspect that seems to be nonexistent in some public school communities.…

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized tests are only able to measure a few of the many important aspects of what is a meaningful and worthwhile education. In the article "The Myths of Standardized Testing,”by Valerie Strauss,the book The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don’t Tell You What You Think They Do is summerized into a short consensus that standerized testing is not good enough to meat the stander set by the no child left behind laws. "Creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity,"(Strauss) are only some of the things that a standardized test fail to examine. If these tests are only testing one part of the education system then why are they being used to see the progress of a student? Maybe instead of coming up with more and more tests that all measure the same thing, maybe test makers should find a different way to measure other parts that are important to…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Education today has sparked many controversial discussions about Standardized testing. Parents, educators, law makers, and even children are stressing the effects that Standardized testing is having on children, teachers, and sometimes even parents in today’s schools. Standardized testing measures the students’ knowledge of what they have learned in school. Some people wonder why schools take Standardized testing, while other schools think it has helped them in a lot of ways. I think that Standardized testing is not as important as some people think.…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I stand before you today to discuss the overuse of standardized testing. Children of these upcoming generations have it engrained in their minds that it is imperative that they prepare themselves for a schooling system with multitudes of tests. Children in these schooling systems are required by law to take standardized tests to represent their currents school. While this is seems beneficial to be funding; parents are not able to perceive how the school and teachers are attempting to construct this into the children’s schedules. Teachers are not only piling on the word for the kids preparing for these tests, but are also forcing all of this knowledge that in a short period of time onto these students.…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Schools in the United States use standardized tests to evaluate the students' in elementary, middle and high school. These tests are also used for entrance into college or even to find out if a student needs to take a particular class over in college. To enter into college, a student usually will take the SAT or the ACT Exams and usually there is a fee for taking these exams. In Indiana, the students' take the ISTEP + Exam.…

    • 1780 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Some people believe that standardized testing in America has a very positive impact on a student’s education and performance, however, others believe that standardized testing causes “important but untested content to be eliminated from the curriculum” (Popham). In discussions of standardized testing, one controversial issue has been whether high-stakes testing improves or diminishes student learning in a classroom. On one side of the argument, Latasha Gandy argues that children “can and must take the tests so we know if they’re mastering the critical skills they are learning from great teachers and great classes, skills they’ll need to pursue the college and career of their dreams”. While, on the other hand, Robert Schaefer of the National…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized Tests Argument Essay Picture a stressed kid doing a long test. Could standardized tests be changed so kids wouldn’t be nervous? What do you think? This brings me to what I will be talking about today, standardized tests. Some people believe that we should change the way kids take these tests, which others believe tests are fine the way they are and aren’t worth the hassle.…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagine being stuck in a bare, silent and chilly room for several hours, nothing but a #2 pencil and a testing booklet to keep you company. This was the reality for many children as, a few days ago, high school students in America sat down to take the PSAT, just one of the many standardized test they will take and have taken throughout their academic careers. A standardized test is a type of test where students are given the same range of questions in similar testing environments in order to judge and compare their scores. Standardized tests are being administered more and more as of late, due to increased funding and acts such as the 2001 No Child Left Behind act which encouraged the use of standardized tests in school. However, there has been much controversy around whether forcing students to take more standardized tests is a good thing, as there is evidence that they are biased, inaccurate, and do the education system more harm than good.…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Norman Augustine's "High marks for standardized tests", Augustine emphasizes the necessity of standardized testing for students in America. Throughout his article, Augustine discusses the "three basic arguments" opponents of standardized testing make. After introducing these three arguments, Augustine effectively refutes them. As a whole, Augustine's essay covers and debunks three "misconceptions" of the opponents of standardized testing.…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized testing has been an extremely disputed topic since the time that it was established and the dispute has only become more pertinent throughout history. Even though we are still requiring students to take standardized tests, I feel that in no way are we helping our students in their education or their personal lives. Standardized testing is only harming the way that our students learn and the way that our educators can teach. I feel that in order to fix the problems with standardized testing, we need to eliminate them. Instead of focusing solely on a test score, we focus on fixing our schools, so that those schools that are still struggling are able to have the same equality that schools in other districts have.…

    • 150 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Standardized Testing Does Not Accurately Represent Educational Quality Standardized tests are tests that are administered by the state and are graded in a consistent or “standard” manner. They are administered in hopes to measure a student's aptitude by assessing how well a student understands a collection of curriculum that the government deems is necessary for all high school students to understand. These tests are administered all across America. Tests such as the ACT and SAT are highly considered by colleges and universities in hopes to increase competition and ensure that only people who are “qualified” are allowed admittance to the school. Standardized tests are, in theory, necessary and beneficial to teachers and students…

    • 1513 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Use of Standardized Tests in Education “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I can guarantee you that.” A wise statement made by First Lady Michelle Obama on the effectiveness of standardized testing in our nation’s public schools (Last). The current use of such testing in the United States has proven non-beneficial to student education for the long-term in an unsettling amount of ways, including that of its unreliable measurability and general ineffectiveness at measuring individual student performance. Standardized tests are neither fair nor objective.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lelac Almagor, author of “The Good in Standardized Testing” says, “Without standardized testing—and lacking any other basis for comparison in their own educational experience—the students’ families had no way of knowing what [Almagor] had assumed was obvious: that eighth graders... on the other side of town were well past working on multisyllabic words or improper fractions. They had no way of knowing that their hard-working, solid-GPA kids were already far behind.” Almagor’s writing shows how standardized testing can actually be helpful to several families to show them how their child is doing in school. While this may be the case, standardized testing still creates more inconveniences for students, teachers, and parents. If the tests take up too much time, create “winners” and “losers”, but don’t support the student’s education, are standardized tests even worth their trouble?…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays