High Stakes Testing Essay

Improved Essays
Enhancing the experience and environments for high school students in order to meet their essential cognitive, physical, emotional, and social needs requires a complete renovation of today’s modern high school. This includes adjustments being made to the school day and year, testing criteria, discipline, dress codes, class gender segregation, food selections, and lunchroom arrangement. In high school, the typical day for a student starts at 6:00 AM since class starts at 7:30 AM. These students need time to take care of personal hygiene, eat breakfast, drive to the campus or get to the school bus stop, and take care of younger siblings if applicable. Unfortunately with students waking up this early, it hinders the amount of sleep they are getting because of a syndrome called delayed sleep phase. In other words, these students go to bed at late times, for some between 12 – 1 AM. …show more content…
High-stakes testing, is a single, inclusive evaluation of a student’s knowledge that determines if they will graduate from high school or be held back. This not only creates issues for the students, it generates corruption in school systems too. When the students don’t feel capable of passing the examination, this causes them to commit acts of desperation such as cheating. For example, if one of the top students of a class is caught cheating, it jeopardizes their future goals and career. Not only that, if the school system decides to turn a blind eye to the offending party, and allows them to get away with it, then the school system is allowing for these actions to be considered acceptable. This is where corruption is generated in the school system and legal actions can occur. In essence, if the high-stakes testing isn’t required for graduation, then the likelihood of occurrences like this are drastically

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Should School Start Later For Teens? Everyone morning, teens across America must wake up early for school. However, what some people do not realize is that teens are not getting enough sleep, but is absolutely vital that they do. The best solution for this is starting school later because not only are teens not getting enough sleep, but schools should also start later because starting school earlier encourages irregular sleep patterns and it is difficult for them to wake up and go to sleep earlier.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The book, The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau, connects another impact -- the impact of testing on social inequity. “While The United Commonwealth and its issues are fictional, there are a great number of things about the world that do reflect our current society, especially in regards to our current education system. In the last fifteen years, our educational system has become very dependent on high stakes testing.” (Anna Dalin, 1). In this book, the University only accepts the best students to attend, but the only way you can be accepted is if you succeed in tests at their school, and at their Testing facilities.…

    • 176 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever wanted to stay in bed on a school day? Many teens (middle school/high school) have to wake up very early to get to school,give them more time to sleep!Not getting enough sleep can cause unhealthy states, Schools who have put back school times are getting better grades, and teens need 8.5 hours of sleep which is nearly impossible with the time of school homework and after school activities. First off, If teens do not get enough sleep they can get into very bad states. Illness, depression, anxiety, and obesity. All those are very bad for not getting enough sleep.…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In order to persuade readers that school times need to be changed, Aaron Carroll uses his own personal experiences as well as hard facts to build a compelling case for the change. Carroll begins his argument by relating directly to the reader using his own personal experiences on the subject, and then relates numbers that show that the change is not only economically viable, but even preferred because of the amount of money it will introduce to the economy. Carroll uses the all encompassing economy and the common ground provided by sleep to direct his argument to the general public in a way that gives them a vested interest in the relatively arbitrary subject of high school start times. In his article “The Economic Case for Letting Teenagers…

    • 864 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Honor Code Dbq

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Source F, students were to take their exams without proctors present. This shows the hypocrisy of schools who use the honor code. They say they want to stop cheating on the other hand, cluster more students who cheat together. We know that with The Feedback Loop (Source C), students are also influenced by their peers. If there are students taking a test without procters, that creates a low tolerance for cheating.…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep per day,” says the National Sleep Foundation’s website, which describes the facts and consequences of sleep deprivation for teens. We have all heard the phrase, yet to most of us this advice seems unrealistic and impossible due to students various extracurricular activities and responsibilities which cause late bedtimes to be a common occurrence for teenagers. Recent research shows that as an adolescent, our biological sleep patterns make it difficult for teenagers to fall asleep before 11 PM. This proves that getting to bed earlier is not a simple solution. Going through the day feeling tired and moody is not beneficial to students nor to schools, teachers, or staff.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Marshfield High School

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Marshfield High School’s Goal High schools have advanced and changed in so many different ways over the years, however as much reconstruction as there has been within the systems, there are some things that will remain forever. When we think of school, we typically associate it with boredom and an excessive workload. What we fail to recognize is that school is not our enemy, it doesn’t aim to destroy our lives, and that it actually aims to do just the opposite. A school is a place that provides endless opportunities for all of its students especially my high school. Marshfield high school as well as all high schools all share a common goal of creating well-rounded students by improving their social skills, their education, and by giving the…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    1. What are some important steps in interpreting data from high stakes assessments? Interpreting data from high stakes assessments is key in helping students improve in school, not just on test scores. The very first step is to understand the data.…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    High Stakes Testing Is Bringing the Schools Down Every parent wants to see their child succeed in school, and to create a life of their own; which is less likely when students spend more time testing, than learning. The students are taught to memorize the presented material, and respond to a specific question on a test to pass; although most do not understand the material and does not provide proper education to benefit them in the future.^1 Some students struggle with test taking, possibly due to anxiety and cannot properly show their learning in this form. The students that have difficulties they cannot control get held back because they failed their grade promotion test, regardless of how they did that past year. Getting a failing grade doesn’t mean you will fail in life.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many students are familiar to high stakes testing. Since it started after the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This act mandated that students are required to pass standardized tests that determines if they will move on to the next grade level or graduate. People have speculated and wonder if this would harm students or benefit them. People have argued that the high stakes testing is good for students.…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction High-stakes testing is believed to have improved the quality of American education through its systems of rewards and sanctions that are triggered by a student’s standardized test score (Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2006).The theory behind this new outlook is that educators and their students will work harder and more effectively to enhance student learning when faced with large incentives and threatening punishments. Many critics fear that the effects of high stakes testing not only will threaten the validity of test scores, but it may also lead to perverse and corrupt educational practices. Others worry that the pressure of doing well on a test will negotiate how instructional practices are implemented in the classroom as well as permit teachers from caring for their students’ needs that are separate from how they will score on these standardized tests. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the pressure of high-stakes testing has a negative impact on student test scores. History of High Stakes Testing Since the signing of No Child Left Behind student test scores have become a vital sign of how well a school is achieving.…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    High Stakes Testing Essay

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to Drake, convincing evidence shows “unintended consequences of high-stakes testing (pp. 28).” These consequences include but are not limited to a narrowing of the curriculum, the failure to retain students so their knowledge can be enhanced, or an increased number of students encouraged to be placed in special education. When the stakes are held to such a high level and are attached to a person’s reputation or school funding, teachers can often resort to “teaching to the test” which is an ineffective teaching practice and may not be seen as relevant to the students. These teaching strategies can result in students remembering content for a short term and not having a real grasp on the material. With the pressures of accountability comes inconsistent teaching practices and the production of fearful teachers who are constantly concerned about how students will perform.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Two gross socio-economical inequalities that have manifested in public schools are the obsessive emphasis on high-stakes testing are damaging for kids in general and people who can afford to send their kids to a private school have no idea how inadequate the public school system can be. Students and schools suffer from high stress levels when their futures rest on the outcome of these tests. The parents who have the know-how, and can afford it, will find some way to get their kids into a better school while parents who do not have the will or the way to get their kids into better schools are stuck with what they got. Emphasis on high stakes testing has pressured teachers into teaching curriculum to pass the test rather than exposing students to new ideas and experiences. When a teacher’s and a school’s reputation and funding rest on the output of the students in the classroom, then logically the teachers and administration are going to push the test.…

    • 1955 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Testing is taking over the United States of America for students. If we keep it up soon testing will be the only thing we do in school. Many parents and teachers are noticing this torture and standing against this. “Most teachers are fed up with the current overtesting, high stakes culture. This has led many excellent, effective teachers to retire early or leave the field” (Meador).…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Overall, high-stakes testing needs more time to develop and needs to be further inspected before important decisions are made concerning the exams. Even though not everyone experiences the same amount of stress and anxiety, many students, teachers, and school districts feel pressured when it comes to high-stakes standardized testing. Since it is very important to receive good scores on the testing, teachers are putting a lot of demand on the students to perform highly. In return, students become stressed when test taking time rolls around.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics