...Abstract Standardized testing does not define ones intelligence or ability. There has always been a quarrel about the tests: students may be very intelligent but are really bad test takers. The No child left behind act was an educational preference forced upon educators that will help them gain an equal opportunity at academic success. The law would promote this through standardized tests. Standardized testing may help students gain wonderful academic success however there are also things that can hinder scholars as well. Standardized testing has its advantages and disadvantages. Over the years standardized testing has been a trending topic, some people are in favor for the test while others are not. How can one test determine an individual’s ability or intelligence when students are people with needs and concerns beyond standardized testing! What is standardized testing? Standardized tests are tests where students answer multiple choice questions where each question only has one correct answer and are usually designed from experience and not theory (How standardized testing damages education ). The tests are based on educational aspects such as reading, math, and science skills (depending upon the type of standardized test being provided). Standardized testing is a law required aspect that is supposed to help scholars academic success and schools expand (with the use of federal funding). Various types of popular standardized test in the United States include Scholastic...
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...In the United States, millions of students partake in what we call standardized testing. Standardized testing is an unfair test that is administered to students and they are scored in a consistent manner. These tests are designed in such a way that the questions and procedures for scoring are homogenously consistent and students are scored in a predetermined, yet standard manner. The performance of a student should not be shown through standardized testing because the results are inaccurate. Standardized tests puts a lot of pressure on educators, students and parents; producing anxiety and causing parents to allow their children to opt out of tests. Standardized tests should be boycotted as a whole in schools because it is an irrelevant and inaccurate way of testing. These tests hinder a student’s overall learning potential. “Teachers agreed that standardized tests are unfair and provides misleading results” (Map and Kennedy 130). The current use of standardized testing does not in fact help educate students with their learning. Too much time is spent testing when it could be spent...
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...Abolishing Standardized Tests Standardized tests should be abolished from schools. Standardized tests, like SOLs, are hurting students more so than they are helping them. These tests put a lot of stress on teachers and students. Test scores are used to show school improvement and how well the school is academically. Schools try to raise their test scores to make the school look better. In order to raise the scores teachers are being forced to teach to test. Teachers are only teaching students what they need to know to pass the test. These tests are forcing a curriculum and that is unfair for both teachers and students. There are many students who want to learn more and there are also teachers who want to teach more and go more in depth in a subject but they are unable to because they are required to just teach them how to pass a test. In class we hear our teacher say all the time, “...but you don’t need to know that it, it won’t on the test.” Many would think that standardized test is helpful to students because the main goal is to pass, and move up a level in school, but in reality students do not benefit from this at all because their sole purpose in learning these specific subjects are only by temporary memory. Standardized tests are so important in a students success in school. Whether or not the pass the tests determines if they pass the class. A student could do really well in class and then fail their test at the end of the year then in turn, fail the class. Not...
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...Standardized Testing: Good or Bad? Education is the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge. We all crave knowledge, we all learn new things every day, and we all make decisions based on our knowledge. It comes to no surprise that a major part of our lives is education, from pre-k to graduate school. Being successful in our education consists of hard work, a little luck, and now, more importantly than ever, being able to pass exams. Tests are one of the only ways to see how well we understand a subject and in many instances, can either make you or break you. Testing, however, should be based on the individual, where differences in the way students learn should be taken into account. As of several years ago, however, our education system has moved away from this individual approach, and has adopted a broad and general way to measure success: standardized testing. We have all taken standardized tests at point in our lives, be it the FCAT or the SAT which had a huge influence on which colleges we were accepted to. There is no argument that standardized testing does have its advantages, such as allowing schools and states to compare their education systems to one another, however, standardized testing being implemented as a major factor in our education has overall had a negative impact on education. The use of standardized testing in deciding whether a student passes or fails is simply wrong. Standardized testing should not be implemented into our school systems...
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...Should schools use standardized testing to determine student achievement? Students in grades kindergarten through 12th grade combined take about 113 mandated tests annually (Strauss). This staggering statistic has led to the debate on whether standardized testing should be used by school districts across the United States to determine student achievement. As a result of this onslaught of tests to the rising generation of students, it has led to an uproar of angry parents, students, and even educators. Why do we still continue to overload our students with these immeasurable, redundant standardized tests every school year? Standardized testing should not be used to determine student achievement. These needless mandated tests damage the learning...
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...Standardized Testing: Harmful to Learning Standardized Testing: Harmful to Learning Currently impressionable youth are receiving test results that may seem of little consequence to most but to them it says they are not good enough, or smart enough. Many students have received these results and felt the disappointment it can bring not only to their academic life but also how it melts into their self-esteem and self-worth. Even a teacher feeling they have failed there students, being unable to achieve certain marks knowing students will suffer not only academically but also loose funding for programs that they so desperately need or want. These negative connotations along with incidents of impropriety have come to light in the process of standardized testing in our schools across the nations. Standardized testing has created a test driven education, altering teaching strategies with a higher stress environment for not only teachers but students as well, and has great consequences for all involved if they fail to meet mandated scores. History of Testing Testing isn’t new to education yet it has changed dramatically from where it started many years ago. The history of testing dates back for many centuries for many different reasons including our military, but most are centered on education and its effectiveness as a whole. When the military introduced aptitude tests they where to help find suitable candidates for positions such as officers, and other special...
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...taking more advanced classes. I'm enjoying them, but there is a recurring aspect in these classes that we have to prepare for, and that is an end of the year standardized test. Whether it is the End of course assessments or the AP tests assigned by the college board, they are prepared for by taking class time to familiarize ourselves with the format of the tests and to do practice tests and problems for possible content on the tests. For this reason and other reasons such as, the scoring errors that cost large amounts of money, and the fact that standardized tests are an imprecise measurement of teacher performance, standardized tests should be completely taken out of the education system. To begin with, class...
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...As the United States has strived to be continually recognized as the best country in the world, they have fallen victim to the global pandemic known as standardized testing. Individuals, both young and old, are put under what is seemingly constant stress to make sure that they obtain passing scores. Oftentimes, these scores can be directly associated with one’s candidacy for crucial milestones such as career certification, college acceptance, educational placement, and, even in some cases, financial aid for post-secondary institutions. No matter where one turns in their lives, they are met with tests that supposedly “effectively” measure one’s competence in any given subject. In fact, in the United States alone, the PARCC tests are issued to...
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...Standardized testing is a topic that everybody knows all too well because we all have had to experience some form of a standardized test. The two most common and popular of these tests are the ACT and the SAT. Depending in which region you live in, you will take one of those test during your educational career. But, does taking that test really decide how smart you actually are. Eleven years of schooling and one of those tests will decide what college you go to and what you will do for the rest of your life. People have all different types of talents and these test favor the people who are good at school but, what about the kids who are good musicians or good athletes? Why should a test decide how smart they are when the activities that those kids are exceeding in, aren’t on...
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...The Cons of Standardized Testing In past decades, tests were given to students to decide their placement in classes or to determine which students needed to be placed in resources class. Today, standardized tests are used for arbitrating the success or failure of students, teachers, and schools. “Despite their biases, inaccuracies, limited ability to measure achievement or ability, and other flaws, schools use standardized tests to determine if children are ready for school, track them into instructional groups; diagnose for learning disability, retardation and other handicaps; and decide whether to promote, retain in grade, or graduate many students. Schools also use tests to guide and control curriculum content and teaching methods” (Fair Test, 2007). On top of that, should one test at the end of a school year determine if a teacher was successful? No! A teacher’s success should be determined on the children’s learning throughout an entire school year based on many different assessments; this should be the same for children’s success. Students and teachers need to be held accountable for their success but not by administrating a standardized test. Standardized testing has become a political issue. When schools are tested they are compared to other schools in there state and nationally which permits politicians to display their concerns about certain school systems. You see, in the political world politician’s show their concern with our schools by attaching standardized...
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...Persuasive Speech Outline CST 100 Principles of Public Speaking Oluwabusola Oshin “The Use of Standardized Test to Determine Admissions” Thesis Statement: My speech is to convince the audience why SAT or ACT scores should not be used to determine college admission decisions. I. Introduction a. Attention Getter: With a show of hands how many of you came into high school with the mindset of making killer grades so you can get into the college of your dreams? With another show of hands, how many of you ended up getting these killer grades? And with a final show of hands how many of your dreams were crushed because of poor SAT and/or ACT scores? b. I think that the use of standardized tests such as, the SAT or ACT, are an unfair way of determining acceptance. Some people are bad test takers and do not usually perform well on these tests. c. I feel that one test should not determine one’s acceptance into college because these students have been working hard for about four consecutive years to meet the requirements to gain admission into a certain university. One test does not show what a student is capable of achieving in college. Transition: Now, let us talk about why standardized testing should not be used to determine admissions. II. Body a. Unfair i. One test does not show one’s full potential or intelligence. ii. i iii. I think the pictures give meaning and life to the album. iv. The album itself is a masterpiece because of the...
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...The Writing Process 5/2/14 Standardized Testing These days, if a school's standardized test scores are high, people think the school's staff is effective. If a school's standardized test scores are low, they see the school's staff as ineffective. In either case, because educational quality is being measured by the wrong scale, those evaluations are apt to be in error. One of the main reasons that students' standardized test scores continue to be the most important factor in evaluating a school is deceptively simple. Most educators do not really understand why a standardized test provides a misleading estimate of a school staff's effectiveness, as well as education quality for students. Standardized test are not effective measurements of a student’s knowledge, they create negative impacts on curriculum, and they are racially, socially, and economically biased. 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 (SAT-I /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.” (Popham) One of the most important reasons that students’ performances...
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...Nonessential Standardized Testing Should students have to take standardized tests? Although standardized testing is currently used to measure the skills of students, it should be eliminated; because it causes anxiety, teachers focus more on testing than the information needed throughout life, and it judges kids on skills instead of knowledge. Standardized testing causes kids to have high anxiety. In the Midwestern states, a study was conducted using three elementary schools. The study was on the anxiety that mandated tests cause on children and teachers. One of the scales used to measure anxiety was the Children’s Tests Anxiety Scale, also known as CTAS, which assess children’s physiological and disengagement behaviors. CTAS measure...
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...was required by my high school, and it was a horrific, four hour long test that I was unfamiliar with. Standardized tests, like the ACT, should be highly revised, if not abolished, due to its inefficient measurement of skill, high levels of stress caused to the students, and its unfairness. Although there are many reasons as to why the ACT is not a reliable test, there are some good qualities it has. The main one is its objectivity: “they are given under nearly identical testing conditions, and are graded by a machine” (Bless). This gives the test some credibility, but in reality, the questions are quite unfair because “objectivity” is different for...
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...students. Standardized tests have been around for a long time and have not shown any improvement. Standardized tests are a waste of money because billions of dollars are spent on it. The tests have unreachable goals for the kids and they have gotten rid of some classes that aren't on the test. During the tests they put all the students in one room and expect every kid in the room to be silent and not talk for multiple days. The younger kids have a hard time since they want to talk to their friend but they can not.The tests have no use or no improvements are shown on these tests academically. This is why these tests are not essential The amount money spent on the tests is outrageous .According to Brown Center of Education...
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