Society should be based upon equality. It should specifically be equal in the arrangement of students throughout their academics. However, standardization is the process that refrains students from experiencing an equal learning experience. Numerous techniques of standardization create a social disparity in providing students with an equal education, ultimately affecting their future. The outcome of these techniques have triggered many individuals to share their perspective on this issue. Cathy Davidson’s “Project Classroom Makeover,” and Karen Ho’s “Biographies of Hegemony” both explore the impact that standardization has generated throughout society. Davidson’s essay explores the essential …show more content…
Moreover, in Ho’s essay, she exploits the dynamic strategies utilized by top investment firms to recruit intelligent students from the most prestigious Ivy League institutions. With the use of vivid language and profound concepts, Ho reveals how standardization has become a generic process to select ideal students that society thinks may be beneficial in enhancing society. This categorization in the education system parallels the hierarchical social structures in society. Though standardization may serve to be helpful or harmful, it plays a significant role in maintaining hierarchies because of the standardized level of learning, the standardized assessments, and the standardized expectations.
First, the most common conflict with the standardized level of learning is it categorizes students who are from average, who are simply average, and who are below average in their given academic area. The standardized level of learning among the education system maintains this type of hierarchy because it contributes to the disengagement among students and the inefficiency that it provides among any given student’s learning experience. The traditional standardized level of learning is expressed in the essay “Project Classroom …show more content…
Students arranged into groups will determine their educational and occupational outcomes in the future. This categorization in the education system shapes the hierarchical educational structures in society. Standardized assessments make it profoundly possible to arrange the achievements of large student groups by race, disability, and socioeconomic status in order to trigger social disparities within society. For instance, Davidson exploits how she came across a young girl with ADD that “has special skills that show up nowhere on her compulsory EOG state tests, on which she continues to score poorly. Your work is worth more than mere congruence to an answer key. This girl’s talents don’t count on those tests, and yet she has a special and valued ability that cannot be replaced by a computer program” (Davidson 63). Standardized assessments do not offer the entire holistic image of students’ aptitude. A student’s true intellect is found beyond SAT, ACT, GED, and other standardized assessment. Their true intelligence is discovered based on their hidden abilities and talents that have yet to be exposed to society. These standardized assessments do not always assess all of what it is that make each individual special and unique. They should not be the determining factor of an individual’s true knowledge. Ho expresses how “smartness means