Their Standardized Tests example essay topic
Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today's students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests.
Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today's students. Too much time is being devoted to preparing students for standardized tests. Parents should worry about what schools are sacrificing in order to focus on raising test scores. Schools across the country are cutting back on, or even eliminating programs in the arts, recess for young children, field trips, electives for high school students, class meetings, discussions about current events, the use of literature in the elementary grades, and entire subject areas such as science (if the tests cover only language arts and math) (Kohn Standardized Testing and Its Victims 1). Alfie Kohn, author of The Case against Standardized Testing, recalls a specific incident of how children are being cheated out of valuable class time. He states that a school in Massachusetts used a remarkable unit, for a middle-school class, where students chose an activity and extensively researched it, and reported or taught, it to the class.
This program has had to be removed from the course curriculum in order to devote enough time to teaching prescribed material for their standardized tests. At my high school all students in the tenth grade were required to take the Graduation Qualifying Exam. Many students did not pass the test their first time, and were forced to go through the test up to four more times, and if they did not pass the test in this amount of time, they did not graduate. It is hard to test students in this way since no one was taught the same way all 12 years or learned the same exact things; these differences are why people are different (Popham 2). School is more about testing now, and we have veered away from creative teaching to teach a test. We need to have teachers who inspire kids to want to learn instead of robots who cram information.
These tests take away from that creativity by forcing teachers to teach the curriculum one way. Teachers are being forced to give up their lesson plans in order to prepare students. One teacher told how she had spent considerable time and money assembling books of importance to Latino culture, and how her students had responded enthusiastically to her initiative. Her students, however, would have to wait to learn about the Latino culture: She was dismayed to see, upon returning one day from lunch, that the books for her week's lessons had been set aside. In the center of her desk was a stack of test-prep booklets with a teacher's guide, and a note saying, 'Use these instead of your regular curriculum until after the TAAS (a standardized test) '. The TAAS test date was three months away (Meier 4).
Additionally, standardized tests have the ability to make or break a student. Today, children are being failed, denied access to an advanced program or school, or even refused a high school diploma on the basis of a single standardized test (Sacks 3). Moreover, these tests can determine whether students will spend their summer vacation on the beach or sweating out summer school. Since standardized tests have a great deal of power, students are forced to prepare for them rather than learn valuable knowledge, simply for the sake that they can graduate or enter into the program or school of their choice. Standardized tests take away the creativity from the teachers forcing them to 'teach to the test' this means memorizing facts rather than learning processes for future application. The learning process should be about how to do things.
Not just formulas for a test but how did those formulas come about. After taking a standardized test, how many people can actually say that they remember, or will ever use such formulas and facts again? Standardized tests do not include everyone because they only include the average. This means that the tests may not include what you learned because the average of the nation didn't learn it. You may not have been taught to the test so you are at a disadvantage just because the teaching style varied.
The pressure to succeed on these tests is resulting in a steady rise of cheating by both students and teachers alike. In fact, it is so intense that some teachers have even been caught cheating with their students. Everything from teachers' pay to principals' jobs are linked to student performance, intensifying the pressure to 'do anything' for high scores. Recently, investigators in New York accused dozens of city teachers and principals with cheating on standardized tests. Over the past few years, scattered reports of cheating by educators have surfaced in a number of states, including Connecticut, Virginia, Arizona, Maryland, and Texas (Bruin ius and Clayton 1).
Joseph Rez ulli, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs and a critic of high-stakes tests, wrote, 'These scores have become the only exchangeable currency in education... so people are starting to cheat. If my job or my promotion or my salary or my recognition as a good principal is on the line- they think, 'Why not?' ' (Morse 3). Furthermore, like teachers with their jobs on the line, students feel pressure to do well on standardized tests and get good grades. Applying to college, and getting into the 'good schools,' has become an intensely competitive process Not only are we spending too much money on these tests, but these days' educators are feeling pressure to raise test scores that range from significant to excruciating, depending on where they work.
And also depending on where they work, educators are leaving the field because of what is being done to schools in the name of "tougher standards."A growing number of schools are rudderless, struggling to replace a graying corps of principals at a time when the pressure to raise tests scores and other new demands have made an already difficult job an increasingly thankless one" (Kohn The Case Against Standardized Testing 4). It also seems clear that most of the people who are quitting, or seriously thinking about doing so, are not mediocre performers who are afraid of being held accountable. Rather they are among the very best educators, frustrated by the difficulty of doing high-quality teaching in the current climate. Perhaps a reason why some educators find themselves leaving their profession is because they feel that students are being tested too much. W. James Popham of Education Week states that "Our children are tested toan extent that is unprecedented in our history and unparalleled anywhere else in the world". While previous generations of American students have had to sit through tests, never have the tests been given so frequently and never have they played such a prominent role in schooling. The current situation is also unusual from an international perspective: Few countries use standardized tests for children below high school age-or multiple choice tests for students of any age.
Another factor as to why some educators are leaving the field could be due to the fact that our school systems are preoccupied with the test scores, and are forcing them out of the field. In 1999 it was discovered by a teacher in Fort Wayne, Indiana that the standardized test results that were handed back to many students, were incorrect due to the company, CTB McGraw / Hill, who was appointed to grade the tests. But before it was discovered that there was a problem with the grading, over 9,000 students in New York City were sent to summer school unnecessarily. In addition to sending students to summer school, the city's school chancellor, Rudy Crew, lost his job because the numbers showed, incorrectly, that there was a decline in scores after they had been rising for two years, under his supervision. Not only were the students victimized in this situation, but so was the school chancellor, who in all actuality had aided the schools in raising their scores once again. Incidences where the teachers or educators are held accountable for their school's scores are not uncommon.
In fact, one of the ways that school systems provoke teachers to raise their scores is by threats on their jobs. Teachers have been told that they will be replaced if their students do not show an increase in scores. Another problem that stems from the rest is the issue of test design. The actual tests were not designed to measure the quality of learning or the quality of teaching. The tests were designed to give a common measure of students' performance. Because large numbers of students throughout the country take the same test, they give educators a common yardstick or "standard" of measure.
This measure can be useful until you take into account how the scores are actually perceived. The scores go from one school to another, and throughout school districts. For this reason it can be said that the tests are biased. Within the article Holding Kids Responsible for Our Failures, Paul Wellstone discusses the heavy disadvantages of high-stakes testing. He believes that it is "absurd for us to believe that students who attend the poorest of schools have anywhere close to the same preparation and readiness as students who attend the wealthiest of schools" (Wellstone 89). This is absolutely true.
Low SES (low socioeconomic status) students who live in the low income areas are obviously not going to have the same opportunity to thrive in their environment compared to upper middle class students who attend school in suburban areas. The sad notion is that those students have to take the exact same statewide exam. Missing the Mark for Low-SES Students by John Gustafson also argues the current standardized testing movement fails to guarantee increased academic performance for students from low-income backgrounds, because they lack the life experiences that serve as a basis for learning. "The current emphasis on standardized testing offers an environment that is far too rigid and fundamental to allow low-SES students to excel" (Gustafson 2). Gustafson points out that there are three main influences that impact academic achievement in which policy makers tend to ignore. That is school, home and peers.
He argues that without these three components, students will not succeed. One reason why I particularly enjoy this specific article is because the author offers different methods to make learning interesting and understandable for students in which they can thrive in a successful academic environment with the pressure of high-stakes testing. The methods include: building a knowledge base, reading activities, performance, encouragement, field trips, and integrated curriculum. For decades, critics have complained that many standardized tests are unfair because the questions require a set of knowledge and skills more likely to be possessed by children from a privileged background.
This is a powerful advantage to students whose parents are affluent and well-educated. It's more than ironic to rely on biased tests to "close the gap" between rich and poor (Kohn 3). Standardized tests aren't like the weather, something we just learn to live with. They are the result of political decisions, and therefore can be challenged, modified, and even eliminated by an organized opposition. It is not necessary for standardized testing to be completely removed from the school system. Standardized tests, however, should be used on an informative basis- to gauge what is going on in a district, not to make decisions about individuals.
In order to accomplish this, a sampling is equally as effective as testing every student. If standardized testing was employed only as a means of gauging where schools are in comparison to other schools, many of the aforementioned problems with standardized testing would be nonexistent (Sacks 2). Schools would not feel the necessity to teach students to do well on the tests, therefore allowing teachers to teach the students as normal and allowing the students to apply what they learn in the classroom to the test. Furthermore, students and teachers alike would not feel the pressure to cheat on the standardized tests since rewards or punishments would not be incorporated into the results. Too much time and energy are devoted to the tests, and the pressure to succeed is at an all time high. As a result, many schools have turned their classrooms into test prep centers in an effort to raise test scores.
This is the biggest mistake we could ever make, and somehow we need to stop it. "If we allow our schools to be turned into giant test-prep centers, then we are involved in the most shameless type of cheating of all: we are helping to cheat kids out of a decent education" (Kohn The Worst Kind of Cheating 2).
Bibliography
Bruinius, Harry and Clayton, Mark. 'School Cheating Up As Stakes Rise. ' Christian Science Monitor. Dec. 1999.
Gustafson, John P. "Missing the Mark for Low SES Students". Kappa Delta Phi Record. vs. 38, no. 2 Winter 2002.
p. 60-63. Kohn, Alfie. "Standardized Testing and Its Victims". Education Week. September 2000.
Kohn, Alfie. The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann 2000.
Kohn, Alfie. "The Worst Kind of Cheating". Streamlined Seminar. Winter 2002-03.
Meier, Deborah. Will Standards Save Public Education? Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.
Morse, Jodie. 'Is That Your Final Answer? ". Educational Tests and their Measurements. June 2000.
Popham, W. James. "Standardized Achievement Tests: Misnamed and Misleading". Education Week. September 2001.
Sacks, Peter. 'The Toll Standardized Tests Take. ' National Education Association. 2000.
Wellstone, Paul. The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda. New York: Random House, 2001.