Persuasive Speech On Standardized Testing

Teaching to the test- the act of teaching in which the main focus is getting students to pass a specific test. Teachers are no longer focused on students actually learning. Their focus is on ensuring that their students pass a given test. Since the No Child Left Behind law passed in 2001 standardized testing, and teaching to a test have become the new normal. The two are quickly robbing students of a true education. Today we will look into why we should do away with standardized testing due to the stress it puts on teachers and students, the amount of money that companies are making off of our education system, and that it is hurting education and everyone who is involved. The pressures of standardized testing put immense stress on students and teachers. Teachers are stressed due to their pay, and job positions are depending on how well …show more content…
How are we accurately seeing what a student has learned when hours of class time is spent on test-prep and not actual teaching? According to Valerie Strauss, in her article “How Much Time do School Districts Spend on Testing? This much”, she writes that every school year, schools are spending 60-110 hours preparing for a test. If all this time is spent on preparing for a test are the students actually learning the information, or are the just memorizing it. Students take a test, and get their score back, typically it is a passing score or a failing score. The growth of a student is not measured (Columbia University, “Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing”). We are punishing the teachers for their students failing a test, but what if that teacher took the student from the bottom of the scale to really close to passing. The teacher will not get rewarded for how much they have improved, but punished because they failed a test (Tim Walker, NEA Survey). We are not testing the knowledge of students in the correct