Mrs. A. Miller
AP Language & Composition
Period 3
February 8, 2016
The Problem With Standardized Testing
Education is constantly on a decline with almost all aspects of it being a failure to the intended purposes. Standardized tests; a dreaded example of such a failure. Standardized tests have been extremely fluidic on the term ‘standardized’, extremely ironic to its’ name it never has a set ‘standard’. The percentage of under-average results in America is a prime factor in the explanation of the ironic standardized test.
The involuntary standardized testing in the U.S. has received flak on how it addresses individuals and how poorly it does on doing so. Gail Jones, the 2015-2016 standardized test representative of Colorado …show more content…
The overemphasis on the factor of testing has led many teachers to rule out self-made projects and engaging activities that give students an opportunity to be creative and imaginative. Scripted and scheduled testing curriculum has become the guideline in many classrooms. There has been nothing that is creative or imaginative from filling in a bubble sheet for a multiple choice test. Students are extremely tired of preparing for and taking standardized test that some have protested by writing essays and letters to their congressmen, dressing up as tired ‘zombies’ and protesting at board of education meetings, and even just plainly not taking the test at all— and thousands of families are taking their children out of doing high-stakes exams from this. In some states, the most severely disabled students are not safe from the standardized test, being forced to take them no matter their condition or state of mind. In Florida, for example, a boy who was born without any cognitive portion of his brain present was required to take an ‘alternative’ version of the state’s standardized exams with no exception of opting out ( Croft, 5 ). “The Obama administration’s ‘Race to the Top’ initiative convinces most states to use the student standardized test scores on evaluation of the teachers even though the exams were never intended for this purpose and the results are not reliable indicators to a teacher’s effectiveness.” ( Croft, 10 ) The “test and punish” procedure to teacher evaluation has given some schools and districts feelings that ignore other parts of life affecting student achievement such as poverty and at times, their socioeconomic