Standardized Testing: Are They Worth It?

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Standardized tests have been an affliction for students life in America since the mid 1800’s. Now that the tests in many states are getting harder in order to align with the new Common Core standards and being used to grade teachers, not just students, they’re also creating a lot of anxiety among parents and teachers, too. For years they have been creating these test, but are they worth it? America has been spending millions of dollars, when they could be using it for a better cause. Many supporters say they are a great way to show students achievement and help administration understand how the students are doing with their curriculum, but these tests don't measure the true knowledge of a student. Having these tests, not only waste money but …show more content…
Supporters state, that they help schools measure how students perform in class. For years they have been using these tests for those purposes but are they beneficial? These test don't measure the true important skills that a human has forever. People say that they help the schools understand how the student is performing but the tests are designed to measure a certain kind of curriculum such as isolated skills, specific facts and function, content knowledge, the least interesting and least significant aspects of learning but there's more to a student than that, According to education researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD “it does not measure, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, …show more content…
So how would the unreliable performance, show a positive affect? Having these tests have not improved student achievement. A May 26, 2011, National Research Council report found no evidence test-based incentive programs are working: "Despite using them for several decades, policymakers and educators do not yet know how to use test-based incentives to consistently generate positive effects on achievement and to improve education” (ProCon.org). This clarifies that throughout the years they haven't seen improvement, so these tests aren't just wasting the students time but also the teachers because they have to stop their curriculum to direct these test. For instance, in the upcoming evidence there's no proof of achievement. “After No Child Left Behind (NCLB)s passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009, with a similar drop in science and no change in reading” (ProCon.org). This shows that after a few years reading was the same but the science and math program was dropped 13 places. These tests put pressure on students, which then result to students doing poorly. 13 may seem just a a number it's a number that resembles these tests aren't doing anything. In conclusion, these tests have not shown student achievement at
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