The Effectiveness Of Standardized Testing In Schools

Improved Essays
All teachers grade differently some are “easy” graders while others are “hard” graders. The only way to truly know how the districts are doing and what they need to improve on is by taking standardized tests. By comparing all the students to the set standard the schools are being judged on what they need to improve on. Standardized testing is the best way to improve the performance of the students and the instruction of the school. Standardized testing more or less brings changes to schools around the United States. Dawn Flanagan, Jennifer Mascolo and Steven Hardy-Braz stated in their article Standardized testing that “standardized test results provide information regarding an examinee 's area of strength and weakness.” If a lot of …show more content…
knowledge they need… don 't stray from their paths.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said this in From education. Teachers need to teach to help the students. Teachers are students lifelines they don 't take away their spirits their dreams or their passion the teachers are nurturing them helping them giving them skills to help them to their future. Children will fail if they have bad teachers. If not students are doing well, but a certain class bombed the standardized testing you can my a logical assumption that the teacher isn 't doing good job teaching their students. They are either neglecting their duty or they are not meant to be a teacher. Standardized testing holds the teachers accountable. I have com across many bad teachers that just expect us to teach ourselves. Many people believe that standardized testing is insignificant, racist and that students will cheat to help their grade. Everything has flaws, nothing is perfect. These tests give feedback to the students and to teachers that is vary significant to the educational process. People cheat. Students are so concerned with their grades they don 't care if they learn the material they just want to get a good grade in the class. As I am a student myself I know the feeling when you are so concerned with passing the class with the best grade you can get because the world would end if your GPA drops because you didn 't do well in one class. Whether it be math, english. That one class where your heart sinks and you would do anything to just skip that hour because every day it sounds like the teacher is talking in tongues. Solving the issue of cheating is easy don 't make standardized testing count toward their grade. These tests should be helpful not stressful. District common assessment in our school don 't count so even in my worst class I don 't go

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    The groundwork for standardized tests was set in place in 1917. Tests were used in WWI to screen intellectual abilities of recruits (Sass, 2016). The controversy of standardized tests does not take in the full abilities of the student. Many students are not good test takers so standardized tests do not do them justice. It does not show what the student can do in the way that they know how to do it (Barseghian, 2012). Many students have refused to take standardized tests. Teachers do not like the tests because if their students do poorly on them then it can reflect poorly on their teaching. On January 11, 2013 Seattle high school teachers refused to give the mandated test (Sass, 2016). Again in 2015 many New York parents opted out their children from taking standardized tests. There were about 150,000 students who were opted out. The parents did this to revolt against the standardized tests (Sass, 2016). A few years ago, high school students in Texas walked out of school to protest the PARCC tests. PARCC was tested out in many schools around the state of Ohio and eventually taken out of the school I was in at the time. Fortunately in 2015, President Obama joins the “too-much-testing” movement and limits standardized testing to no more than 2% of class time (Sass, 2016). There is still much more improvements that the government can take to fixing standardized tests, but at least one step has been…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The one part of most every public school in America that shapes the way education is viewed and approached: standardized testing. Standardized testing is a controversial part of America’s system of education that greatly affects students and teachers. The way that teachers teach and students learn are decided by standardized tests; schools let standardized tests change their schedules, classes, and even methods of teaching. The idea of a test that keeps all the teachers on the same page and can compare schools to improve teaching sounds great, but in reality standardized tests create many problems. Standardized testing in schools is detrimental to students’ learning: these big tests are overly stressful,…

    • 1285 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kids often dread the day in the school year when they have to take a big test. Some don’t like the pressure that is put on themselves because they want to perform good. While others don’t like tests at all. The real truth is that standardized testing should be used, not abused. Standardized testing has many benefits for teachers, schools, the state and of course for the students.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Education today has sparked many controversial discussions about Standardized testing. Parents, educators, law makers, and even children are stressing the effects that Standardized testing is having on children, teachers, and sometimes even parents in today’s schools. Standardized testing measures the students’ knowledge of what they have learned in school. Some people wonder why schools take Standardized testing, while other schools think it has helped them in a lot of ways. I think that Standardized testing is not as important as some people think. People giving and making Standardized test need to take into consideration that the scores they are getting may not be as accurate as they think. Weather you believe it is a good thing or a bad thing though…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Standardized tests are being used in schools to supposedly determine a student’s academic capacity, or if a teacher’s way of educating is being effective. Tests like the SAT and ACT…

    • 1688 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized Testing Dbq

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages

    For example, “since 2001 44 percent of schools had reduced time spent on history, science and the arts by almost 145 minutes a week” (NewYorkTimes). Since these tests reflect a schools and districts success many schools will focus more on the texted topics in order to receive higher scores. Furthermore many teachers will limit time spent on science and history because the test refects how well they taught and, consequently, how much they get paid. For example, if a teacher was getting graded on language and math but not history, which do you think that they would focus on? Finally these tests also encourage teachers to cheat this system for their own gain. As an illustration “178 Atlanta public school teachers and administrators from 44 schools were found to be cheating on standardized tests according to a July 2011 state report” (ProCon). In other words these tests are an easy opportunity for teachers to raise their pay and reward unreliably. In conclusion because of standardized tests schools are spending less time on history, science, and there arts in order to receive better…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Standardized tests are important for many reasons. These tests help to hold students accountable for their education. Student 's can measure their yearly progress and set realistic goals for their future. Teachers and schools must also be accountable for teaching. Test scores will show how well a teacher has taught their students and if the student 's have retained the information. The curriculum students are taught must be kept up to date. Without these tests, that would be very hard to tell. All students deserve a fair education and a fair chance to learn information that is up to date. Student 's can see where they compare to other student 's with these test scores. Student 's can also see where the compare towards important set testing requirements. These tests can make or break a student 's grade or chance to getting into the college of their dreams. Standardized tests are important and should not be taken lightly. While some people find these tests to be unfair and have no use, there are many valuable reasons that all students must complete these…

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “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…

    • 1850 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized Testing Flaws

    • 1075 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Standardized tests may raise some scores, but they are ruining schools. Standardized tests take lots of money from schools (Heinemann, 1). When students are taking these big tests they are missing other classes. Student focus on the tests and…

    • 1075 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized testing has been an inevitable part of life for countless Americans, making them question the validity of their life choices since the third grade. When taking standardized tests, one encounters some obvious drawbacks. Any student who has been forced to take one of the hundreds that exist can recount the tales of stress and feelings of inadequacy that linger after every test taken. Standardized testing does not benefit students because it objectifies certain race/ethnic groups, it doesn’t measure the test taker’s mental capacity or progress, and it is not worth the unnecessary problems for students.…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A developing controversy surrounding standardized test may have you question what education is really coming to. Topics concerning standardized tests have been a growing controversy since 2004, and even in 2016, the issues surrounding them refuse to cease. The way standardized test are used now; are to measure, predict, and compare a student’s intelligence and academic performance, and a schools ability to provide students with a strong academic performance. Even some school districts are against what standardized tests are doing, for example, in 2012, more than 100 Texas school districts passed a resolution claiming that standardized tests are “strangling” public schools. School districts came together passing a resolution arguing that standardized…

    • 1303 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As important as standardized testing is for education, it is still fundamentally flawed. Programs once promoting education reform have now created all-or-nothing gambles for schools. Teachers, schools, and school funding are all at risk because of flawed and sometimes inaccurate tests. This has also brought larger issues to the public’s attention. I am opposed to schools using standardized tests because of government interference and the tests being rigid and inflexible.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Before standardized testing, teachers and schools were measured by the students’ abilities throughout the year. Now, the focus is on how well students do on these standardized tests. This is forcing teachers to stray from their normal methods of teaching and focus mainly on test preparation. They are being motivated to focus on the scores of these tests, in some states, by the reward of more money given to their school if their students score high. Statistically, those students who attend schools in the lower income areas tend to score lower. In the states that have decided to distribute money based on test scores, this causes the lower income areas to repeatedly be denied the financial aid they need, thus creating an inadequate learning environment and starting the vicious cycle all over again. Some would even go as far as calling this method of distribution discrimination, since there are a larger number of minority students in the lower income neighborhood…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There are many different types of students in the world and a student can react differently to a teaching styles then another. In a study it showed that a teacher that seemed ineffective in their classroom one year had better results the following year. Students can also be influences outside of that teacher classroom like previous teachers or current teachers of another subject as well as a tutor if they have one, also test scores can be influence by family and friends it can have a positive or negative effect on a student. There are other ways to evaluate a teacher's capability in a classroom which some schools are already doing like videotapes of classroom, teacher interviews, viewing of lesson plans, assignments, and samples of student work can be more proficient than a standardized test. That is why we should not evaluate a teacher on a standardized test…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lelac Almagor, author of “The Good in Standardized Testing” says, “Without standardized testing—and lacking any other basis for comparison in their own educational experience—the students’ families had no way of knowing what [Almagor] had assumed was obvious: that eighth graders... on the other side of town were well past working on multisyllabic words or improper fractions. They had no way of knowing that their hard-working, solid-GPA kids were already far behind.” Almagor’s writing shows how standardized testing can actually be helpful to several families to show them how their child is doing in school. While this may be the case, standardized testing still creates more inconveniences for students, teachers, and parents. If the tests take up too much time, create “winners” and “losers”, but don’t support the student’s education, are standardized tests even worth their trouble?…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays