Diane Ravitch said, “Sometimes, the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.” In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act was initiated and mandated annual testing in all 50 states. Since then, the U.S. dropped from 18th in the world in math with a similar decline in science. Standardized testing has been a topic of conversation since the beginning of No Child Left Behind, and it needs to be solved. It affects teachers and students alike. Some believe that it is necessary for students and the education system as a whole. Others believe that the education of young minds has become too focused on standardized testing to the point that it might actually be damaging. I want to
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Standardized tests only measure a small portion of a student’s education. There is so much more to a student’s education that makes it meaningful. A late education researcher by the name of Gerald W. Bracey, PhD said that qualities that standardized tests can’t quantify or measure include "creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity." There is more to a student than just how well or how poorly one does on a standardized test, but the tests themselves measure or inform schools that. On that same note, these tests don’t necessarily show us we’re capable of or how much we’ve learned. It only shows what a student is capable of in a single time frame without taking into account the emotional or the mental state of that …show more content…
People think about economic and diplomatic problems without remembering that those issues may not be able to fix those problems in our generation. If we can’t, it will be up the next generation and the generations after that to face these problems. If we aren’t able to teach these students properly, we are failing them. They won’t learn as much as they could be while they are in school and in turn may not be prepared for their adult lives. That’s why I stand by my statement that we need to solve these issues concering standardized testing. We need to lessen the burden on teachers to “teach the test”, stop trying to limit student’s education to what is on those tests, and lessen the impact these tests can have on our education system. I can agree that we should always find a way to measure the effectiveness of a system and change things for the better, but standardized testing, as it is, is not the way. I’ll end simply with a quote by Albert Einstein. "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted
Standardized tests only measure a small portion of a student’s education. There is so much more to a student’s education that makes it meaningful. A late education researcher by the name of Gerald W. Bracey, PhD said that qualities that standardized tests can’t quantify or measure include "creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity." There is more to a student than just how well or how poorly one does on a standardized test, but the tests themselves measure or inform schools that. On that same note, these tests don’t necessarily show us we’re capable of or how much we’ve learned. It only shows what a student is capable of in a single time frame without taking into account the emotional or the mental state of that …show more content…
People think about economic and diplomatic problems without remembering that those issues may not be able to fix those problems in our generation. If we can’t, it will be up the next generation and the generations after that to face these problems. If we aren’t able to teach these students properly, we are failing them. They won’t learn as much as they could be while they are in school and in turn may not be prepared for their adult lives. That’s why I stand by my statement that we need to solve these issues concering standardized testing. We need to lessen the burden on teachers to “teach the test”, stop trying to limit student’s education to what is on those tests, and lessen the impact these tests can have on our education system. I can agree that we should always find a way to measure the effectiveness of a system and change things for the better, but standardized testing, as it is, is not the way. I’ll end simply with a quote by Albert Einstein. "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted