length: 1892 words 5.4 double spaced pages if my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, i wouldn't be here. Michelle obama standardized tests have historically been used as measures of how students are compared with one another or how much of a particular curriculum they have learned throughout the semester or year. Consequently, standardized tests are being used to make major decisions about students, such as grade promotion or high school graduation, and higher education evaluation. Various numbers of students across america have had to repeat classes because of the way standardized tests are used to pass or fail students. Although the tests require students to retain information until the end of the semester, i believe it is wrong to allow just a single test to decide whether an entire semester’s work will be rewarded with the credits that may have been well earned. Some standardized testing such as the sat, are not fair to students who may come from a poor educational background and do not retain information as their fellow peers.

Children are not learning, according to standardized testing scores. They all share a common goal: to give our children the best education possible, but there are many different ideas as to how this should be accomplished. Throughout all the many debates on this topic one militant voice rises above the crowd, in support of standardized testing, shouting oddly vague catch phrases such as accountability, raising the bar, and tougher standards.

The problem with standardized testing, however, is that it misunderstands almost everything about education, including motivation, teaching, and evaluation. The most blatant forms of motivation, namely bribes and threats, are ultimately more harmful than helpful. Some schools use diplomas as both a way of bribing and of threatening students to do well on standardized tests.

When students are told that they will receive something in exchange for performing well enough, the real reason that they should want to do well, which is self improvement, is sacrificed. Bribes and threats turn learning into a chore, rather than a fascinating journey, which results in students who do not want to go to school. They are being taught that the only reason that they should seek knowledge, or, even do anything, is to receive a reward or avoid a punishment. However, in the long run, it is more important that children are motivated to learn new things, rather than motivated merely for a reward or by a punishment. Students are not the only ones who are adversely affected by improper motivation.

When schools and teachers are rated by their students test scores, the emphasis that was once placed learning and understanding, is forced to be placed on test preparation instead. Some states have taken the opportunity to plac even more unwarranted pressure upon teachers by giving more money to the schools whose students score higher on the tests. Since students attending schools located in poor areas tend to score lower, distributing funds thi way is the equivalent of deliberately denying financial aid to those schools that most need it. Furthermore, since much of the student body in these schools consists of minorities, this unfair distribution policy is, essentially, discrimination. Since schools rely upon state grants to cover many of their expenses, when they receive less money, students suffer. Thus, educators who teach in poor areas are further pressured to provide a superficial education, covering only areas which are tested, so that the school will receive more funding. On this topic, alfie kohn, a former educator and opponent of standardized testing, states that when high stakes are applied to educators, those who teach low scoring populations will be most likely to be branded as failures.

If excellent teachers and principals decide to leave the profession as a result of incessant pressure to raise scores, we would expect minority and low income students to be disproportionately affected by the departure of these educators. Poor teaching the art of teaching is being destroyed by those who mistakenly believe that teaching children how to learn is not as important as forcing children to memorize data that is destined to be forgotten. These people do not understand that each child learns best when taught with a style, and at a pace, that she is comfortable with.

When one considers how children learn, it becomes obvious that it is much more important that educators be allowed to teach in depth about subjects that interest their pupils, rather than superficially covering large quantities of material. Unfortunately, good teachers are being forced to spend increasing amounts of time arming their students with obscure data for a test that is flawed at best and destructive at worst, because proponents of standardized testing seem to feel that a teachers primary purpose should be to program childrens minds as if they were computers. Alfie kohn said that accountability often turns out to be a code word for more control over what happens in classrooms by people who are not in classrooms. This has an effect on learning similar to the effect that a noose has on breathing a look at. Standardized testing, as the most abundant method of evaluation, is grossly flawed.

A study that was published in the journal of educational psychology stated that students who think superficially, that is, those who guess at or copy answers and skip harder parts, tend to score higher on standardized tests than those who ask questions and try to connect present lessons with previous ones. These tests are measuring and rewarding superficial thinking more than active thinking. Moreover, tests such as the cat, mat, and sat were not designed to measure teaching or learning. They were designed in such a way that only one half of students would answer correctly, resulting in a wide range of scores. Kohn asserts that the main objective of these tests is to rank, not to rate to spread out the scores, not to gauge the quality of a given student or school standardized testing. Further arguing the case against standardized testing, is the fact that these tests are biased.

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Research shows that white children who live in affluent areas tend to score the highest on the tests. This does not mean that these children are any more or less intelligent than others. Many experts believe that this is due largely to two reasons: the first reason being that english is usually the only language that they speak therefore, they do not have a language barrier.

The second reason is that their parents can afford to purchase additional test preparation books and materials for them. It is unfair to those who are less fortunate and those who learned english as a second language to use such a flawed instrument to assess them, much less to categorize them. England, who has been an eighth grade teacher, a special education teacher, and a school principal, says: the no child left behind plan attempts to address this issue. This policy states, research has shown that english language learners, when compared to their english fluent peers, tend to receive lower grades and often score below the average on standardized math and reading assessments.

If we sent american students to mexico and gave them a standardized test in spanish, would they not be at a significant disadvantage? secondly, it is implausible to think that increased, higher stakes testing can improve this condition. None an american educator who was examining the british educational system once asked a headmaster why so little standardized testing took place in british schools. My dear fellow, came the reply, in britain we are of the belief that, when a child is hungry, he should be fed, not weighed. Children in america are subjected to testing more than students in any other country in the world, yet their students are learning more than ours. Statistics show that students from other countries consistently demonstrate a broader range of knowledge and a greater depth of understanding. This is due, at least in part, to what other countries are not doing that we are. Teachers in other countries are not required to force feed their students lists of facts, then test them yearly to see what they have retained.

Argumentative Essay on Standardized Testing Text

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