High-Stakes Testing Unfair

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According to The Washington Post, “American students take an average of 112 standardized tests by the time they graduate high school” (Kent par. 19). The syllable of the syllable. This number translates to an average student taking eight standardized tests per year. Schools force students to sit down each year for eight to nine hours and test students to show their progress or knowledge, rather than relying on their course grades to determine this information. While there are numerous advocates for standardized testing, children are tested too often, and high-stakes testing is taken too seriously. High stakes testing not only negatively impacts students by causing stress, but also contains cultural biases that make the tests unfair. These tests …show more content…
High-stakes tests are not used to measure the student’s knowledge or understanding; instead, success rates are based on the culture of the student. These policies are put in place such as, No Child Left Behind, that “closely link[s] standardized testing to disproportionately harm Black, Brown, [and] indigenous students” (Shafer par. 5. The adage of the adage. Therefore, phasing out high stakes standardized tests would benefit other cultures so they can express their knowledge instead of being forced to take tests not structured for them. Although standardized tests are portrayed as testing for benchmark skills, these tests are created with an underlying meaning that is unknown to the public. Many standardized test questions are built on life experiences that hinder low-income children from excelling since they are unable to attain some of those real-world situations. Research shows that “the tests are not measuring how much students learn[ ] or can learn;” instead, these tests measure “the family and community capital” (Greene par. 2). The adage of the

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