What Are The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

Standardized tests are unnecessary because they are excruciating to the minds of many innocent students. Each year, the tests get tougher and stricter until the students cannot process their own thoughts. The tests become torturous to the minds of those only starting in the world of tests. The students already battling in the war are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the world of uncreativity and narrowness. As the walls narrow in on them, they are lost and unable to become innovative thinkers. Moreover, the implementation of standardized tests into the public school systems of the United States of America has controversially raised two different views –the proponents versus the opponents in the battle of the effectiveness of

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

After the implementation of the “No Child Left Behind Act” high risk standardized testing has become a pressure cooker of corruption in the United States due to often unrealistic expectations, abundant incentives, and harsh punishments placed upon educators and administrators, overall resulting in the essential need for reform. The concept that every student’s academic ability can be assessed by a single universal exam is a misguided notion.

Standardized testing in the United States started in the mid- 1800’s (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). This kind of testing was originally created to measure students’ performance and progress in school (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). In recent years, the public school system has relied heavily on the information this test provides, in doing so creating controversy. Other than being a student myself, and participating in multiple standardized exams such as, CSAP, ACT, and SAT, I do not have much background knowledge on this debate. The debate over standardized testing has raised this inquiry question: What are the effects of standardized testing on the United States public education system?

Since Middle School, I was not opposed to standardized testing. I thought of it as a way of testing us of what we have learned. Although, after reading some articles about standardized testing I am re-thinking the pros and cons. From personal experience, I thought of it as a challenge to pass them. But now that reminisce about it, I noticed some of the cons of standardized testing. I remember having a week or two dedicated for testing, and in case of students failing they had to take time to redo it. It would take a while for all the students to finish their tests. And after remembering how it was back in those times I was more on the opposed side.

Education has been an important part of society for centuries. Over the years it has slowly evolved into what it is today. The topic of education has been controversial since the beginning. It seems as though there is always someone that sees a need for change in how students are being taught and assessed. More specifically, many people think that standardized testing is not an effective way to assess students. While on the other hand, many also believe that standardized testing is the most efficient and effective way to assess people of all ages. The debate over standardized testing has been shown to effect students and the community in many different ways. Standardized assessments have had huge impacts with both teachers and students. Whether one thinks standardized testing is effective and efficient or misdirecting and unproductive it is a big part of the educational system. While the argument may present that standardized tests leads to simulated knowledge, others argue that standardized tests are very effective in assessing students.

One of the biggest topics in the educational world is standardized tests. All fifty states have their own standards following the common core curriculum. There are many positives and negatives that go with the standardized tests. A standardized test is any type of “examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner” (Popham, 1999). These standardized tests are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Schools use achievement tests to compare students.

Many people in the United States are concerned with the role that standardized testing has on education. Most of them have very strong views on this subject and as it usually happens with large-scale issues these views are very diverse and often opposite. Some claim that standardized testing is the best way to determine student’s skills and qualities because they are equally designed for everyone and not biased. Others, on the other hand, argue the fairness of these tests. They believe that test scores do not represent student’s knowledge. What is certain, in my opinion, is that this subject needs more attention followed by actions that will actually make difference in the education system.

Standardized testing had only been added to America’s public education curriculum when “the common school movement began in earnest in the 1830s in New England as reformers… began to argue successfully for a greater government role in the schooling of all children” (“Common School”). “By 1845 in the United States, public education advocate Horace Mann was calling for standardized essay testing” (Mathews), because he believed that “political stability and social harmony depended on universal education” (“Common School”), and that these tests would help teachers “find and replicate the best teaching methods so that all children could have equal opportunities” (Gershon). There weren’t any other well known attempts at standardized testing until “the College Entrance Examination Board—… or SAT—began in the 1920s” (Gershon). Later “in the 1960s, the federal government started pushing new achievement tests designed to evaluate instructional methods and schools” (Gershon), because the Cold War “fueled a space race and increased pressure on U.S. schools to show improvement” (Mathews). However, it wasn’t “until the mid-1970s, when the College Board revealed that average SAT scores had been falling since 1963” (Mathews), that the country realized “public school standards were too low” (Mathews). This is the reason why “Congress created the National Assessment Governing Board” (Mathews), an organization which ”established new standards for the National Assessment of Educational

Like the use of teacher evaluation tools like VAMs or standardized testing, the United States is attempting to diagnose academic achievement through the use of standardized testing. As explained by Gratz, “Standardized test scores accurately measure student achievement and [this] constitutes for the full range of goals we have for students.” (78). Disengaged politicians have taken the forefront in determining what the expectations of the education system should be, but the actual application falls

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

Our education system should be teaching kids how to live in the real world. Standardized test don’t. Kids should be able to gain knowledge, solve problems, be more creative, and enhance their thinking schools. Standardized tests don’t help with that. These test, such as the ACT and the SAT, are used to show how students perform against other students who take the same test. They are also used to help teachers decide what to teach in their classrooms. Kids are expected to gain knowledge from these test, but no real progress has been shown. The amount of test we take should be reduced.

The standardized test has become the staple of the United States K12 education system. Students at all levels are routinely tested, and schools evaluated based on the scores. It’s easy to look at this as a necessary part of the system, a needed way of assessing both school and individual student performance to ensure quality across all schools. These tests are regarded as a tried-and true way of doing this, when in reality they are neither old nor accurate in assessment. I move in this essay that standardized testing in K12 education, from early assessment tests all the way through the ACTs and SATs that students take for college admissions, not only damage K12 education by catering to the test rather than to knowledge proficiency and

A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students are likely to perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT-I and the ACT both of which attempt to forecast how well high school students will perform in college. But standardized achievement-test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use The folks who create standardized achievement tests are terrifically talented. What they are trying to do is to create assessment tools that permit someone to make a valid inference about the knowledge and/or skills that a given student possesses in a particular content area.