When first introduced to the topic of standardized testing in schooling, and how it affects us as students, I was completely neutral on the subject. After more careful consideration and evaluation of both sides of the issue, I have decided that I agree more with the advocate who says that standardized testing is a negative component of the whole “educational experience. ” Standardized test scores are used to assess schools that are failing or succeeding and as well to provide a supposed concise picture of the skills and abilities of the students.
Tests are intended to help schoolteachers, dministrators, the community (parents, taxpayers, etc. ), and politicians evaluate each individual school or a particular students success. These evaluations then are used to label either the school or child as a success or a failure. These tests are as well used to make decisions regarding the way the students are to be instructed and student placement. In theory, test scores looked at over time will reveal how much progress schools have made in their efforts to maintain or raise academic standards.
All that can be reliably predicted at the outset, however, is that the tests will easure the ability of schools to maintain high scores or raise inadequate scores, with the question “has the student learned more then to fill in the circle? ” in the end. The standardized tests rely on memory; fill in the bubble multiple-choice answers that is suppose to measure the student’s achievement. Apparently, these tests will help to identify a student’s weakness or strengths, but the problem with it is that it doesn’t measure other important qualities a student has.
Other qualities include their writing techniques, or evaluation of real world situations. At best, standardized tests offer a snapshot of performance relative to other students, schools, or to a set body of factual knowledge. Test scores can be biased by a number of factors: test design, test conditions, student preparation, scoring accuracy of test content, student disabilities or special needs, student readiness on the day of the test. Test scores should not be sole basis for making decisions about placement in programs or changes in curriculum for any child.
Those decisions should be made on the basis of: observation in the classroom; evaluation of day-to- ay class work; homework assignments; meetings with parents; observation of student change and growth throughout the school year. To state what is at stake based on standardized testing can also be combined with what ways these tests can be biased against certain groups. Standardized tests can be biased against certain groups such as students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds which are more likely to be retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or put in special or remedial education programs when it is not necessary.
They are more likely to be iven a watered-down or “dummied-down” curriculum. This only ensures they will fall further and further behind their peers. On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in “gifted and talented” or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly. So clearly the future of a students academic career is at stake, which in turn reflects how the student will also succeed in life. Common practices of how standardized testing can be abused are rather atrocious.
Examples include retaining a child in grade or withholding a students high-school diploma solely on the basis their score on a test, or relying on test scores to determine whether a teacher or school should be funded or rewarded. Low performing students are being retained excessive number of years before pivotal testing to ensure the students are properly prepared to take the tests. Some low performing students are being suspended and even expelled before testing day, or reclassified as exempt from testing because they are determined to be either Special Education or
Limited English Proficient. These have been common practices among schools to prevent low scoring students from these tests. Other abuses are teachers in urban areas are being forced to “teaching to the test” by teaching students only those things they know will be tested. They are spending hours memorizing facts, drilling on test strategies and rehearsing test protocols. These students are being denied the opportunity to learn subject areas other than those tested.
This is leading to teachers and other personnel to compromise their ethics by cheating on standardized ests just to get the overall scores up. Many schools feel the need to do this because they fear having federal and state aid cut backs on money they already do not have to schools that do not show improvement. Through all the research I have done with this controversial issue it is hard to find anyone other the politicians who have mandated these tests that are in favor of them. Also after mandating such programs many after a sprint to the finish are left without funding or long-term goals.
It seems we are looking for a quick fix to our educational problems in America, and hat it isn’t easy to fix something that has had a half-century to fall apart and into decay. The funny part of that is that the people designing and mandating these tests do not realize or should I say do not have children in the low performing schools. The problem lies at the student’s inability to learn, because certain schools particularly poverty- stricken urban and rural areas don’t have resources they need. They just do not have enough money for the support and resources schools need in order for students to perform well.
Students attending affluent schools have a etter chance of scoring higher than those students who attend urban schools because they have more money, better teachers, and more resources. The people who mandate these tests seem to be in a cloud where they want all students to perform as well as the elitists without giving them the same advantages to all, only the same tests. It was also interesting to see that some of the views of other nations that have surpassed us on the education rankings and how they are amazed by our use of standardized testing and wonder why we use these tests.