Why Is Standardized Testing Unfair

Standardized testing is often regarded as a tool used to assess a child’s intelligence level. It gives the teachers a glimpse of the inside of a young student’s mind and what they understand as far as an individual subject goes. However, both of these points are common misconceptions as far as standardized testing goes. In fact, it is extremely unfair and is not accurate at all, the test subjects students to a useless and ultimately harmful test for no reason at all. It is inaccurate in the sense that the test in one subject is taken over the course of a day. Depending on factors often outside of the student’s control, the child cannot be held totally responsible for the resulting score. Standardized testing causes extreme, unnecessary stress on not only the students taking the test, but the teacher as well. It …show more content…
It also uses a significant amount of money that could be better used to improve other areas of our education system. Standardized testing is a detrimental and inaccurate way to assess the learning process of a child.
One test on an individual day does not define a child’s intelligence. If a student takes a test on a bad day, understandably, the score would be lower than if he/she took the test on an excellent day. However, in America, we let the school system’s standardized scores define a child, sometimes for the majority of their lives, such as the case with the SAT’s. For reference, “Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and "caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…’” (Is the use of standardized tests improving education in America). This quote proves that standardized testing does not accurately