Is Standardized Testing Helpful

Standardized Testing: Harmful or Helpful?
The one part of most every public school in America that shapes the way education is viewed and approached: standardized testing. Standardized testing is a controversial part of America’s system of education that greatly affects students and teachers. The way that teachers teach and students learn are decided by standardized tests; schools let standardized tests change their schedules, classes, and even methods of teaching. The idea of a test that keeps all the teachers on the same page and can compare schools to improve teaching sounds great, but in reality standardized tests create many problems. Standardized testing in schools is detrimental to students’ learning: these big tests are overly stressful, …show more content…
First standardized tests hold too much importance: “Several states administer "high stakes" tests, which can have a significant impact on school assessment and funding, determine your child's class placement, or even prevent grade promotion (Standardized Tests | Prepare And Interpret Results). The previous quote shines light on the fact that standardized tests carry a lot of weight in students’ success in school and on the schools themselves. The fact that one or two tests a year can decide a student’s or even an entire school’s success or failure is impractical. Next the test is overly emphasized: “During the week of standardized testing, many students become very stressed and feel the pressures from the school to perform at their best (Stress and Its Effects).” This quote shows that stress is being passed from educators to students. The educators are stressing about the fact that the test scores are so important to the school and their jobs which is passed to the student. Teachers pass this stress to the students by always bringing up the fact that the topics being taught will be on the standardized test and that the test is just around the corner. This constant reminder of the big, bad test gives the students way more stress and …show more content…
Some points that might be brought up are that standardized tests provide a measure of performance for schools, create teaching standards, and are objective. “The tests provide a yardstick for educators to evaluate the performance of students and schools, measuring it against state and national standards.” Different schools sometimes teach at different paces and in different ways. One standardized test could not possibly measure each individual student and compare them accurately. “Probably the greatest benefit of standardized testing is that teachers and schools are responsible for teaching students what they are required to know for these standardized tests (Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing).” The standardized tests show what is supposed to be taught in order to do well on the test. The test does not give teachers topics that will help students overall academically. “Standardized tests are objective in nature.” Standardized tests may not be biased, but the questions are created by people who do not know the students’ needs and cannot create test questions that facilitate the individual students’ learning methods. While proponents of standardized testing have a good argument, the cons of standardized testing outweigh the