Essay in Progress: Final Essay
Although standardized tests aid in providing students, teachers, and even school board members with a guideline for the learning process, in the end the overall effects of such tests become questionable as they deter student’s potential growth. The list of standardized tests has grown tremendously throughout the years, originally beginning with the SAT and the ACT. These two tests alone have become a small part of this checklist of tests every student must face before reaching college. In today’s society it’s difficult to locate a student in a household who hasn’t experienced a standardized test. Initially administered to evaluate and compare student performance throughout the rest of the state, the country, …show more content…
Authority figures in our lives are normally expected to just go with the flow of these tests and be there to remind their paranoid student that the state knows what they are doing. However, those who are doing their research are able to see past this bandwagon-type behavior. Alfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer who speaks and explores various areas in the topics of education, parenting, and human behavior. He makes the comment of how “[s]tandardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole”(Kohn). No longer are these tests used for the comparing of students to one another or learning of student needs they have now become the dominant principle for determining whether students will progress onto college and judging the effectiveness of students, teachers, and even school districts. What’s even worse is as these tests were primarily intended for high school students preparing for college, children are now being introduced to standardized tests as early as the third grade with the OAT. Some states are even taking it a step further and administering the tests to kindergarteners. “[N]ever have the tests been given so frequently and never have they played such a prominent role in schooling” (Kohn). Kaye Peters, a teacher from St. Paul is also one who has done her research that she decided needed to be done as she observed her students go through “the process of learning”, better known as standardized tests. “In October, Central students take practice SAT and ACT tests; teachers and students lose half a day of instructional time. With the spring GRAD reading, writing and math tests; they lose another half day. And for ninth graders, twice-yearly MAP tests each take two hours” (Peters). More and more time is taken out of each year in order for these tests to be done. Despite this
Although standardized tests aid in providing students, teachers, and even school board members with a guideline for the learning process, in the end the overall effects of such tests become questionable as they deter student’s potential growth. The list of standardized tests has grown tremendously throughout the years, originally beginning with the SAT and the ACT. These two tests alone have become a small part of this checklist of tests every student must face before reaching college. In today’s society it’s difficult to locate a student in a household who hasn’t experienced a standardized test. Initially administered to evaluate and compare student performance throughout the rest of the state, the country, …show more content…
Authority figures in our lives are normally expected to just go with the flow of these tests and be there to remind their paranoid student that the state knows what they are doing. However, those who are doing their research are able to see past this bandwagon-type behavior. Alfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer who speaks and explores various areas in the topics of education, parenting, and human behavior. He makes the comment of how “[s]tandardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole”(Kohn). No longer are these tests used for the comparing of students to one another or learning of student needs they have now become the dominant principle for determining whether students will progress onto college and judging the effectiveness of students, teachers, and even school districts. What’s even worse is as these tests were primarily intended for high school students preparing for college, children are now being introduced to standardized tests as early as the third grade with the OAT. Some states are even taking it a step further and administering the tests to kindergarteners. “[N]ever have the tests been given so frequently and never have they played such a prominent role in schooling” (Kohn). Kaye Peters, a teacher from St. Paul is also one who has done her research that she decided needed to be done as she observed her students go through “the process of learning”, better known as standardized tests. “In October, Central students take practice SAT and ACT tests; teachers and students lose half a day of instructional time. With the spring GRAD reading, writing and math tests; they lose another half day. And for ninth graders, twice-yearly MAP tests each take two hours” (Peters). More and more time is taken out of each year in order for these tests to be done. Despite this