Is Standardized Testing Beneficial

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Is Standardized Testing Beneficial? Can a multiple-choice test really validate a teacher’s performance or how well a student is or is not learning? Should these tests be mandatory in every school? I do not believe standardized testing should be used to justify a student or a teacher’s performance for several reasons. For one, how can we hold a teacher’s reputation accountable if the student is just take the test to simply take a test, if they do not care it could have inaccurate results. Secondly, it is a commonly talked about fact that some students do not perform well during test taking, they can often become stressed or forgetful when put on the spot. But most importantly what if the student has some type of disability that may affect their …show more content…
If a student/class performs poorly during these tests a teacher or school can be penalized by losing their state funding, suspension, up to termination of a teacher. If they do not increase test scores year over year these are just a few of the situations that could occur. Teachers are often distracted from teaching basic needs or reaching their own educational goals because structurally they are shown that they need to teach around the content found on standardized tests. This could hinder a teacher or a student’s development when it comes to what skills they will need later in their …show more content…
I am not just speaking of autistic children, it is a much larger than just one special needs group. Imagine the mind of a child with dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, Autism or even an ESL (English as a Second Language) student, how complicated it must before for them to be held to the same standard as a typical student. How can we expect all children to fit into a one size fits approach to these standardized tests? As I read Mitra’s article she said, “Additional research is needed to examine this relationship between special needs and the creation of contested spaces in opt-out contexts and also on the impact of this relationship for English Language Learners who are particularly targeted in the ESEA policy (Mitra).” According to CNN’s website, “8 states now allow parents to opt-out of these test, meaning state laws give them the right not to have their children take the standardized tests. (Wallace) She also stated that in 2015, “200,000 students out of 1.1 million did not take these exams”. The state of New York was not pleased as they felt the students nor parents had a valid reason for not doing these