Standardized Testing have become a controversial issue in how our society educates its children and young adults. Standardized tests are important indicators of student achievement and aptitude but they do not show what the student really knows. These tests should not be used for important educational decisions and they should not be allowed to influence the structure of curriculum.
No test is good enough to serve as the only or primary basis for important educational decisions. The National Center for Fair and Open testing says that schools use standardized tests to determine if children are ready for school, to diagnose learning disabilities and to decide whether or not to promote, retain or graduate students. Different curriculum is used among schools, so why would a student have to be penalized for not being exposed to content that was on the standardized test?
The concept of “Teaching to the Test” decreases student capabilities and knowledge. School districts place a huge importance on test scores; increasing test scores are the most important indicator of school improvement. As a result, pressure is placed on teachers to ensure that test scores go up. School curriculum has been changed and narrowed to match the content on standardized tests. This allows for higher test scores, but not an improvement in academic performance.
The common question that arises in the debate against standardized testing is, if we do not use standardized tests, then how will we know how students are doing? The answer to this question is teacher observation of student performance on real learning tasks. By switching to this method and omitting standardized testing, inaccurate education decisions would not be made and the structure of curriculum would not be affected.
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Standardized tests can be useful because they are a standard be which students can be measured by people who are not in the classroom. Teacher observation is inherently subjective to variables of the student and the classroom. Unless those real learning tasks have only one right answer (and that's as bad as the tests) it would be impossible to compare students' accomplishments. Like it or not, the entire educational system is founded on comparing students' achievements. Practically speaking, what I would prefer would be to continue standardized testing, but to take away the consequences of getting low scores. Without the pressure,administrators might stop forcing teachers to teach to the test. It would take time and commitment from the educational system, but I think the solution is a happy medium between standardized testing and teacher observation aimed at both objectively and subjectively measuring the accomplishments of students.
ReplyDeleteI think standardized testing is important to measure a child's progress in school and to see how they compare to other students. However, one standardized test can not make or break their future. They may be having a bad day, and that off day should should definitely be taken into consideration. There should be other factors involved such as gpa, and class ranking.
ReplyDeleteI agree that teaching for the tests is a bad thing. Many teachers only educate students for what they will find on the tests rather than what they will find in the real world. The only concern that I have with your blog is this: How will you measure a students progress with out some form of standardized testing?
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