“The average student in America’s big-city public schools takes some 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and the end of 12th grade — an average of about eight a year, the study says” (Rochon). Standardized testing has been around since the mid 1800’s. It was around 1920 when the SAT was introduced, and the ACT was soon after (Layton). According to The Washington Post, these tests have become more pressure-packed and ubiquitous than ever before. Many parents and teachers believe standardized tests are useless and don’t measure anything important, but there are some people who believe that standardized tests measure how well students can retain information and recall it in an organized fashion and put it in words that others
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Walker writes about how these parents strongly believe in the “Opt-Out” movement which allows parents to exempt their children from testing. These authors also write about a rebellion against these standardized tests, and how a child can score low on the test but still be intelligent. The student could have a bad day and that can affect his or her score. Allie Bidwell writes about how Harvard did a study on eighth grade students and found out how these tests don’t measure our intelligence. “What improving test scores does do”, Gabrieli said, is raise students' "crystallized intelligence" – the ability to access information from long-term memory to use acquired knowledge and skills.” With what the literature says, I gathered that this means that our intelligence can’t be measured by a test, because different people have different forms of intelligence. According to The Washington Post, “Last year, very concerned moms led 240,000 New York students to opt-out of the statewide tests, depriving parents, schools and taxpayers of valuable information about how well (or badly) we are educating our kids”(Strauss). Many people would say that the opt-out movement is a bad idea, but more parents believe that this should be an option for their kids. These tests aren’t made for everyone, and everyone shouldn’t be forced to take them, especially kindergarteners who should be …show more content…
These tests do nothing for the students except give them stress and anxiety. Standardized tests hurt the students and don’t accurately measure the student’s worth, or the school as a whole. When the state mandates a test and attaches funding to said test it is kind of like an ultimatum. There are schools losing funding because they have kids not passing these tests. Many parents are choosing the option to opt out of testing, which is a new movement that recently got passed, but this isn’t a very stable option. The school boards need to start thinking of new ways to collect data on these students because the teachers aren’t teaching the whole student. They are teaching the students to the test, and it is affecting our future generations. They are losing quality education for the sake of a standardized
Walker writes about how these parents strongly believe in the “Opt-Out” movement which allows parents to exempt their children from testing. These authors also write about a rebellion against these standardized tests, and how a child can score low on the test but still be intelligent. The student could have a bad day and that can affect his or her score. Allie Bidwell writes about how Harvard did a study on eighth grade students and found out how these tests don’t measure our intelligence. “What improving test scores does do”, Gabrieli said, is raise students' "crystallized intelligence" – the ability to access information from long-term memory to use acquired knowledge and skills.” With what the literature says, I gathered that this means that our intelligence can’t be measured by a test, because different people have different forms of intelligence. According to The Washington Post, “Last year, very concerned moms led 240,000 New York students to opt-out of the statewide tests, depriving parents, schools and taxpayers of valuable information about how well (or badly) we are educating our kids”(Strauss). Many people would say that the opt-out movement is a bad idea, but more parents believe that this should be an option for their kids. These tests aren’t made for everyone, and everyone shouldn’t be forced to take them, especially kindergarteners who should be …show more content…
These tests do nothing for the students except give them stress and anxiety. Standardized tests hurt the students and don’t accurately measure the student’s worth, or the school as a whole. When the state mandates a test and attaches funding to said test it is kind of like an ultimatum. There are schools losing funding because they have kids not passing these tests. Many parents are choosing the option to opt out of testing, which is a new movement that recently got passed, but this isn’t a very stable option. The school boards need to start thinking of new ways to collect data on these students because the teachers aren’t teaching the whole student. They are teaching the students to the test, and it is affecting our future generations. They are losing quality education for the sake of a standardized