Purpose Of Standardized Testing Essay

Standardized tests are nationwide examinations meant to create simple and domestic assessments throughout the United States, based solely on student response. Ideally, these tests create an accessible and orderly evaluation of student results dependent upon student learning and academic ability, but in all actuality, these standardized tests reach none of their intended ambitions. As of the 2010-2011 school year, Brookside Elementary, in Norwalk, Connecticut, was one of 45,000 schools failing in their standardized test scores (Berger). After their Christmas break, Brookside students returned to their schooling, but excessively studied for nine weeks exclusively out of a standardized test prep book. These students’ liberal arts educations were …show more content…
Standardized testing is based on the same or very similar information, making the results easy and comparative to one another. These tests can be used, when taken over large groups of people or individually, to determine whether a student has the ability for a certain purpose, and can also be used to choose the correct people for a job, class course, or curriculum (“Purpose of Standardized Tests”). These standardized tests allow for the collection of large amounts of useful information at low-cost, with the assumption that the data is correct, from which decisions should be made and students can be analyzed without the need or use for extended periods of class time (“Standardized Tests-ProCon.org”). Though the purposes and intentions of the tests are evident, they do not comply with their promised aspirations, thus making their quick, comparative results useless in an analysis. Standardized testing is a new and inventive technique in comparison, but since the installation of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, the “failures in the education system have been blamed on…[the] increasingly pervasive use” of these tests (PR, Newswire). This lack of support, combined with their inability to reach their intentions, creates a standardized test that is both useless and