Standardized Testing Controversy

If you are a parent of a child in grade school, there is no doubt that you have been surrounded by the standardized testing controversy that seems to have infiltrated the American school system. But for those of us who do not have children in school, what exactly are standardized tests, and why is there so much controversy about them? Standardized tests are defined as “any form of test that (1) requires all test takers to answer the same questions […] and (2) is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students.” The most common types of standardized tests include achievement tests- exams that measure the skills and knowledge that students learn …show more content…
Because of standardized testing and learning standards, all schools in a given state are required to teach the same material. If a student transfers from one school to another, they are less likely to be behind or ahead in material at the new school than they would be if standardized testing did not exist. This makes for a much easier transition process for the student. Another positive feature to standardized tests is that they are a good way to see how well schools are doing in an objective manner. These tests are scored by computers instead of by individual teachers so that there is no bias involved in the grading process. Though we want to believe that all teachers are honest and would never purposely change a student’s score on the exam, it is possible that there will be those who wish to produce favorable results in an unethical way. A final positive feature to standardized testing is that these exams help to distinguish how specific sub-groups are doing academically. These sub-groups can be based off of special needs, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, etc. Because every student receives a test with the same questions and the same answer-choices, the scores can be compared. If there are low test score trends in certain sub-groups, that information can be used to create specific programs and services that will work to improve the exam …show more content…
According to Alfie Kohn, in his 2001 article “Standardized Testing and Its Victims”, “Making students accountable for test scores works well on a bumper sticker, and it allows many politicians to look good by saying that they will not tolerate failure, but it represents a hollow promise. Far from improving education, high-stakes testing marks a major retreat from fairness, from accuracy, from quality, and from equity.” Kohn critiques standardized tests because they can be unfair. A majority of the questions included on standardized tests require a certain kind of background knowledge or skill set that would only be possessed by children that come from privileged backgrounds. These privileged children often have more cultural capital and are members of a higher social class than those who are not privileged. Therefore, these children are more likely to answer questions on standardized tests correctly because they have been exposed to more knowledge outside of the classroom. This unfairness creates a huge gap in test scores between the rich and the poor. It is these poor students who are not passing standardized tests that need high test scores the most…to pass to the next grade level or even to graduate. Underprivileged students are already more likely to not do as well in school compared to their privileged counterparts and all that

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