High Stakes Testing In Public Schools Essay

Two gross socio-economical inequalities that have manifested in public schools are the obsessive emphasis on high-stakes testing are damaging for kids in general and people who can afford to send their kids to a private school have no idea how inadequate the public school system can be. Students and schools suffer from high stress levels when their futures rest on the outcome of these tests. The parents who have the know-how, and can afford it, will find some way to get their kids into a better school while parents who do not have the will or the way to get their kids into better schools are stuck with what they got. Emphasis on high stakes testing has pressured teachers into teaching curriculum to pass the test rather than exposing students to new ideas and experiences. When a teacher’s and a school’s reputation and funding rest on the output of the students in the classroom, then logically the teachers and administration are going to push the test. Even in the military, a big test or field problem would come up activities like PT and Sergeant’s Time would take a back seat to training for the test. When the students in low SES schools have to tackle a problem, they already start at a disadvantage. They may not have the access to technology, textbooks or even a library to …show more content…
To start off their parents would not even know where to look for information on these better schools. Low SES parents probably have not completed college, so how good is that letter going to look that they have to submit before the review board compared to one written by two parents that have completed college? The time or technology to prepare the application may not be available to them. The knowledge of how to even prepare for the required IQ test may not be there. When there is a family that is scraping money together to keep food on the table, how are they going to afford the $150.00 IQ test given by a private agency just to get the application looked