Standardized tests according to Pearson, one of the leading education companies in charge of administering standardized tests for students from third to eighth grade, are a means to understanding what exactly is takes place in a classroom. This entails "why a child might be struggling, succeeding, or accelerating on specific elements of their grade-level standards” (O’Malley). The great controversy of the matter is that proponents of standardized testing argue that standardized tests are fair and objective ways to measure student ability, while opponents of these tests argue that standardized testing has not improved student achievement and that they only measure a small portion of what is truly needed in the “real world”. While some believe
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The Industrial Revolution brought about a change from the old methods of hand production to the innovative machinery that began to flood the United States at the time. As a result, children were taken out of farms and factories and placed in schools where they learned to essentially become “good factory workers”. Standardized tests first materialized in these schools as an efficient way to test a large number of students quickly (Fletcher). Following this, in the mid-1800s, Boston school reformers Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe, inspired by the Prussian school system, introduced standardized testing into Boston schools. According to Howe and his colleagues, these tests were created to be “a single standard by which to judge and compare the output of each school, “positive information, in black and white,” to replace the intuitive and often superficial written evaluations of oral examinations” (Tyack 35). Eventually, Boston’s standardized testing initiative was accepted by school systems nationwide. This is an important benchmark in the history of standardized testing, for not long after this, the first concerns about excessive testing were voiced in approximately 1906 by the New York State Department of Education. They claimed that it was a “serious …show more content…
Exams like the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the IELTS (The International English Language Testing System) are used for students wishing to further their studies in English-speaking countries. Tests like these measure whether the student has a good command of the language and will be able to assimilate wherever he or she continues their field of study (ProConorg Headlines). Taking one of these standardized tests allows international students to compete and learn on the same level as American students have the opportunity of doing. Thus, standardized testing not only benefits admissions officers making decisions on whether or not to admit international students to an English-speaking school, but it also benefits these international students so that they are ensured a most productive and understandable education whether it be in their native language or
The Industrial Revolution brought about a change from the old methods of hand production to the innovative machinery that began to flood the United States at the time. As a result, children were taken out of farms and factories and placed in schools where they learned to essentially become “good factory workers”. Standardized tests first materialized in these schools as an efficient way to test a large number of students quickly (Fletcher). Following this, in the mid-1800s, Boston school reformers Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe, inspired by the Prussian school system, introduced standardized testing into Boston schools. According to Howe and his colleagues, these tests were created to be “a single standard by which to judge and compare the output of each school, “positive information, in black and white,” to replace the intuitive and often superficial written evaluations of oral examinations” (Tyack 35). Eventually, Boston’s standardized testing initiative was accepted by school systems nationwide. This is an important benchmark in the history of standardized testing, for not long after this, the first concerns about excessive testing were voiced in approximately 1906 by the New York State Department of Education. They claimed that it was a “serious …show more content…
Exams like the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the IELTS (The International English Language Testing System) are used for students wishing to further their studies in English-speaking countries. Tests like these measure whether the student has a good command of the language and will be able to assimilate wherever he or she continues their field of study (ProConorg Headlines). Taking one of these standardized tests allows international students to compete and learn on the same level as American students have the opportunity of doing. Thus, standardized testing not only benefits admissions officers making decisions on whether or not to admit international students to an English-speaking school, but it also benefits these international students so that they are ensured a most productive and understandable education whether it be in their native language or