Helpful or Harmful?

Standardized testing has become a major problem in the United States.

Teachers have spent all year teaching the students the subjects that are on the tests. They have taken away creative time so that their students are more prepared. Some people that are against the test have said that ” their use promotes a narrow curriculum and drill-like “teaching to the test,” and that excessive testing undermines America’s ability to produce innovators and critical thinkers”(http://standardizedtests.procon.org/).

I agree with this 100%. Having intelligence isn’t going to get you everywhere in life, even though it will get you far. Students should know about the current events, and not all teachers know this. They may think that this test is going to teach you everything that you need to know to acquire a job in the future, or get into the college of your choice. However, that isn’t the case.

Students are taught the quadratic formula and told that it is very important to know it. But is it really? Standardized testing is supposed to take place in the beginning of May, but it is prepared for all year. Some students don’t realize what they are missing because of the tests. They never had the opportunity to have creative time because their teachers were so focused on standardized testing. How would they? One of the questions on the test was about a tortoise racing a talking pineapple. Many of the students were raising their hands and telling the teacher that it didn’t make sense.

One person said this about the question, “”Antitesting activists have taken up the cudgel, saying that the passage and the multiple-choice questions associated with it perfectly illustrate the absurdity of standardized testing. And by Friday afternoon, the state education commissioner had decided that the questions would not count in students’ official scores “(www nytimes.com). Seventy-five percent of parents say standardized tests are a solid measure of their children’s abilities, and 69 percent say such exams are a good measure of the schools’ quality. (http://www.

apnorc.org/) This statistic surprised me. I thought that many parents would want their children to be able to be creative. Also, I thought that parents would want their children to know about the current events because they are becoming more and more important nowadays. Standardized testing is a significant issue in my eyes.

It takes away from creative time and students don’t know about the current events, which are becoming very important. I think that standardized testing would be a good thing if we didn’t focus so much on them throughout the entire school year. Overall, I think that standardized testing is an issue that needs to examined. http://fairtest.org/facts/whatwron.htm http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click®ion=Masthead=Homepage=SearchSubmit=Homepage=qry244#/too%2520much%2520time%2520preparing%2520for%2520standardized%2520testing/ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/nyregion/standardized-testing-is-blamed-for-question-about-a-sleeveless-pineapple.html http://standardizedtests.procon.org/ http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don’t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx