...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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...Too Much Homework? It's all over the news: kids are spending a lot of time on homework. And, according to some, it's way too much. With the current emphasis on high-stakes testing, educators are trying to do more with less, which can result in an overabundance of schoolwork outside of school. Some critics say there is no evidence to suggest that homework is helpful to student achievement; on the contrary, too much of it can overwhelm students and cause them to disengage. Others, however, claim that homework is necessary and helpful, designed so students can practice the concepts taught in class, build good study habits, and reflect on their own learning. As an eleventh grade student who is in advanced and ap classes, I think that homework is the cause of my depleting grades. Now, you’re probably going to think that I’m like any other kid in high school that hates homework and that to even spend another second reading this will be a complete waste of time, right?Even so, just hear me out because I have several reasons that might just change your mind. I have thousands of assignments every week; most of them homework assignments. As a result, I’m cascaded with homework every day, causing me to stay up until 11 o’clock at night more often than not. Obviously, this is a threat to my health as a developing teenager. It could stunt my growth, and result in fatigue and stress because everyone knows that no good sleep leads to no good grades. Even if I were...
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...solving. Instead of multiple-choice exams, scool systems should model the state tests on the portfolios of class work and projects the high school kids should get to do. “That teaches them how to express themselves. They can see where they grew.” “That’s more on the lines of critical thinking. That makes you want to do better, and I just feel like kids learn more from experience.” Testing * Is testing taking over our schools? An entire faculty answers 2) The tests aren’t reliable measures of how much students know and how well teachers can teach. “There’s very little reason to have faith in the tests,” Rosenberg, who works as a teacher trainer, said. “All you get is one little score. You actually get no information about your child,” she added. “You get no information about what it is they do well. What it is they need to work on.” 3) Schools spend too much time prepping for mediocre, unreliable exams, especially at struggling schools where students could benefit from more enrichment. Wheeler says her son’s school does not offer art or music to students, and that they rarely go on field trips. She says the focus on the math and English tests also takes away time from the other core subjects of science and of social studies. “All they do is teach them to take a test. You should teach a child to learn,” she said. “There’s so much that’s...
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...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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...Controversy over High-Stakes Testing Hannah DeBose Dr. Tzipora Katz EDU-505: Contemporary Issues in Education 10-28-13 Alfie Kohn article on Standardized Testing and its Victims has some great key points. The article is divided into 8 key fact points. Fact 1 brings to light about how frequently the students are being tested and how big of a role theses test play a role on student progress. Kohn provides numerous examples to substantiate his concern that the tests are politically driven, inappropriate as measures of learning substantive skills, and counterproductive. Fact 2 describes the life of the student, number of parents living at home, parents' educational background, type of community, and poverty rate all have a factor on student. We debate this issue because it is not fair that student of a low poverty school does not receive the same benefits as the more privileged schools do. Students living in high poverty environments are mostly to dropout, do poor on test, and have harder time grasping information. Many low poverty schools do not have the educators that they should have. Meaning they may have uncertified teachers, or many first year teachers. Many teachers go to high poverty school Fact 3 Norm-referenced tests were never intended to measure the quality of learning or teaching. This type of test identifies whether the test taker performed better or worse than other test takers, but not whether the test taker knows either more or less material...
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...Special Education Kids and Standardized Testing Special education children have trouble keeping up in regular classrooms which is the reason they have their own classes, but they are often still forced to take the same tests as regular students. The tests can benefit some students but not all. When it comes to the standardized tests for kids with special needs there are accommodations in place like extra time and having an aid read the questions. These only help kids with simple special needs, not those with severe conditions; some teachers use different testing just for kids with severe cognitive dysfunctions, but many still use regular testing. “Two-thirds of students with disabilities are performing well below grade level in reading and...
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...Jamie is a junior in high school, and she has a part time job, attends school for seven hours a day, take college classes as a high schooler, maintain good grades and keeps up with her school work, and currently in a relationship. America’s society is in a big rush to have teenagers mature and grow up before they reach adulthood. Many adults in today’s generation expect high school students to have all their eggs in a basket by time the student is eighteen. High schoolers are only young once, let them be teenagers and enjoy it. The stress of a high school student is too high because America’s society expects students to keep up with course loads, participating in extracurricular activities, have a job while attending school, maintain relationships, and testing and...
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...SCIENCE MEETS REAL LIFE 2 The scientific method is the set of actions that one takes when trying to figure something out. It is based on the principle of cause and effect (Ward). By definition there must be five steps in order for the scientific method to occur. The first action is observing something that piques one’s curiosity. The second action, questioning, may occur simultaneously. Something is seen, and questions come into the observers mind like “Why does that work like that?”, or “What would happen if…” The third action is called the hypothesis, which everyone remembers from grade school means, an educated guess. This can also be referred to as a prediction. Logically, the fourth step is to test this hypothesis through experimentation. Finally, an explanation is created as a result of testing the hypothesis (Pruitt, 2006). It is important to note that the experimentation phase of the scientific method can be a very lengthy one. The results of experiments may support one’s hypothesis, but further experimentation may be needed to account for other factors or scenarios. If the experiment does not support the hypothesis, more research may be needed as to why. More experiments will follow. Experimenting can raise more questions, which may require one to start the process over from the first step again. People use the scientific method numerous times every day, without ever thinking of it. While the phrase “scientific method” normally conjures up images...
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...Robbie Gutierrez English 102 04/18/13 Road to Success Once, the American educational system was viewed as the best in the world. Other countries would study our methods and try to copy them in their own countries. Today the American education system is no longer the best in the world. With decreasing test scores and poor academic achievement, people have questioned why there have not been any changes in our education system. It’s important for the upcoming generation to get an education and take back the number one rank in public education. It should be the major concern for this country, because children are the future of this country. Other industrialized countries are ranking higher in test standardized test scores compared to the U.S. Because the educational systems of other countries are better than ours, we could learn from their educational successes. The United States could benefit from implementing three things; better teacher training, emphasis math & science, and create a system of academic student tracking. America is the land of the free and the land of many opportunities. It’s a place where many people from around the world come to have a better life. America has many opportunities to offer, but it lacks on one thing, a comprehensive education system. Each year America is falling behind other countries and it’s getting worse as time goes on. The only thing we were number one in is having the most medals in the London Olympics. Furthermore, in a...
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...they should get rid of them. It is wrong for a student to complete four years of high school with good grades and other good qualifications, and then have that student take a test and be placed at a remedial level due to the scores they receive. Standardized tests are a waste of time, because some people actually know the information and are smart, but they are just bad tests takers or maybe they just are not good with a test, which does not mean they should be put in remedial classes or be denied admission to the university they want to go to because of that. Standardized test are...
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...The debate of standardized testing has been going on for some time now. A standardized test is any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way, and that is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students. While different types of tests and assessments may be “standardized” in this way, the term is primarily associated with large-scale tests administered to sizeable populations of students. Standardized tests comprise a very important role in student’s education. Many children will take at least one standardized test every year, which means many teachers will spend significant class time on test preparation. The results can reflection the teachers' efforts as well as that of the students. In some states, standardized tests are the yardstick for determining whether a child gets to progress to the next grade level. Many parents want to know the purpose of standardized tests. The answer is that these tests help evaluate the performance of students, teachers, even whole school districts. The results provide information on a child's ability to learn new material, as well as his grasp of the material he's already supposed to understand. With that information, teachers can identify areas where specific students need more attention, while officials can identify the strengths and weaknesses...
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...Indian Education System: What needs to change? What do we need to change about the Indian Education System? Education has been a problem in our country and lack of it has been blamed for all sorts of evil for hundreds of years. Even Rabindranath Tagore wrote lengthy articles about how Indian education system needs to change. Funny thing is that from the colonial times, few things have changed. We have established IITs, IIMs, law schools and other institutions of excellence; students now routinely score 90% marks so that even students with 90+ percentage find it difficult to get into the colleges of their choice; but we do more of the same old stuff. Rote learning still plagues our system, students study only to score marks in exams, and sometimes to crack exams like IIT JEE, AIIMS or CLAT. The colonial masters introduced education systems in India to create clerks and civil servants, and we have not deviated much from that pattern till today. If once the youngsters prepared en masse for civil services and bank officers exams, they now prepare to become engineers. If there are a few centres of educational excellence, for each of those there are thousands of mediocre and terrible schools, colleges and now even universities that do not meet even minimum standards. If things have changed a little bit somewhere, elsewhere things have sunk into further inertia, corruption and lack of ambition. Creating a few more schools or allowing hundreds of colleges and private universities...
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...It’s Best if You Drug Test! Do you think it is fair that you work only for your paychecks to be reduced by taxes that support government assistance? This government assistance is anywhere from cash assistance each month to food stamps or Medicaid. Anyone can receive this help each month as long as they fall below the maximum income amount allowed. By anyone I mean drug users. People that would rather spend their money on illegal substances that their own food or healthcare. I believe that people that receive government assistance in North Carolina should be randomly drug tested throughout the time period that they are receiving them. There are a few reasons why I believe this. First, funds are getting low, which means less money available to help the people that actually need it. Secondly, if you can spend your money on drugs or other extracurricular activities, why can’t you buy your family food or pay medical bills. Another reason is that drugs are a barrier to self-sufficiency. If you have drugs and government assistance to fall back on then why get a job? Last but not least, there will be less fraud committed if we drug test recipients. Shortages in funds affect many organizations. A major one is government assistance. If you walk into The Department of Social Services all you see are signs saying that they do not have enough funds to help pay your bills or other things you may need help with. There is a shortage in funds with public housing also. Just the...
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...Rex’s Adventure By: Donovan Delacruz Once upon a time there lived a boy name rex. Rex lived in a small town, with very little people. One day rex had a school trip to attend to, the field trip was to a science museum. All the children in rex’s class were very excited. They took a big yellow bus to the museum, when they got inside there was a tour guide to guide them. The first place the guide took them to see is “the room of electricity”. The guide was talking to them about electrons and how they make charges, like static electricity. He also told them about electricity and hot it works in a circuit, he told them that a circuit must have a positive and negative charge in order for the circuit to work. He taught them how to make static electricity by using friction. The guide told them ohms law. The tour guide gave them an activity to do to better understand a circuit; he gave rex 3 wires, one battery, and a light bulb. The guide was leading rex through the whole thing because he did not really understand. The guide told rex that he had been putting the wires on the wrong side of the battery. The guide explained why he needs to fix it; he told him that the circuit would need a positive and negative charge in order for it to work. On rex’s second try, he got it right. The guide told the group what a resistor is. He said a resistor is a small piece of the circuit that reduces current flow. He taught them about the receiver, he said that the receiver would be the light bulb...
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...Research Newsletter And Webinars" (2006), " By imposing standards on students’ minds we are, in effect, depriving them of their fundamental intellectual freedom by applying one standard set of knowledge. Standardized tests oversimplify knowledge and do not test higher-order thinking skills. State standards are externally imposed on local teachers.” and “One-size-fits-all standards either dumb down instruction to the lowest common denominator or condemn low-ability students to frequent failure” (Standard-based assessments). The point this brings up is a strong one. How can the educational system except to successfully teach all students using the exact same model when it’s a well-known fact everyone has vastly different learning styles. Metaphorically, trying to shove the square through the circle whole is going to always lead to failure. The idea of having a set standard that all children should know is obviously very important, but setting down a specific guideline all kids are supposed to form to via an annual standardized test doesn’t work. The "Nclb Stories From The Front Lines" (N.D.) website was told by Silvia Ramos-Higueros from El Monte Elementary School Teachers Association “I start every day at school saddened that I have to spend the whole day of teaching pulling workbooks and assessing my students who are 6 year olds.” “No time for art, no time for P.E., no time...
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