Standardized Testing Essay Example For Students

Standardized Testing Essay Standardized Testing Essay is used practically worldwide for all sorts of various criterion. A standardized test could be used for getting into a top of the line college, or to see if you meet the requirements for a job. Such tests include the well known ACTs and SATs. There are many We will write a custom essay on Standardized Testing specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now different ways that standardized tests can be graded. Norm-Referenced, and Criterion-Referenced forms of grading are just a couple of the types of tests. Tests can also be easily misused and are often protested. Often times in order to persue a certain career, before you are employed it is necessary to see how you rate in comparison to the company?s standards. If you were to, for instance, become a pizza maker for Pizza Hut, they may give you a test in order to make sure that you make the pizza according to their standards. In order to be a successful business and keep customers coming back for more, there has to be an order to the way all things are processed. If a customer were to come in one day and get a large pepperoni pizza, and there was a certain number of pepperonis on the pizza, they will expect that to be the same every time. The number of pepperonis on a pizza is a standard number. Standard meaning a degree or level of requirement, excellence, or attainment (www.Dictionary.com). The company may show you how to make all the types of pizza to the standards that they have preset, then have you make the pizzas they have shown you the same way. If the standard is eighty pepperonis on a large pizza, then you will be required to put eighty pepperonis on the pizza. If the standard amount of sauce used on the pizza is one ladle full, then you would use one ladle full of sauce. Standards are set in stone until later possible being re-evaluated and changed. Until such an event happens however, standards will stay the same. If on a test, you are asked to add two and two together. The answer you attain is always going to be four, because that is the set standard. Two plus two does not equal five simply because standards say it does not. Standards are used so that everything stays in order. ?Academic standards are clear written expectations of what every child should know and be able to do at specific grade levels. In Wisconsin, the standards were written for English/Language Arts, Math. Social Studies and Science at the 4th, 8th and 12th grade levels. The Wisconsin Model Academic Standards were written by educators, business people and parents from throughout Wisconsin serving on committees under the oversight of the Governor?s Council on Model Academic Standards,? (www.fairtest.org). Bush wants tests to be used to tell if in fact the student has taken in the standard amount of knowledge they should have while in that grade. Getting eighty out of one-hundred questions would not be bad neither. That is because often times, questions are thrown in that may not have necessarily been something the student would have learned during his third grade year but rather his fourth grade year. If the student does answer those questions correctly the student is advanced and know more than the standard amount of information that was taught to them. Under Bush?s plan, if a large amount of students are not meeting state standards of what they should be learning, then tax money will be yanked away from that school. In this case, it is crucial that all teachers do their job in teaching children the standard information required to be known by a specific grade or skill level. .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d , .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .postImageUrl , .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d , .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:hover , .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:visited , .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:active { border:0!important; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:active , .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uca2c3727413e793322aea417d6dd804d:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The Jerry Springer Show Essay If the standard information is taught thoroughly and correctly then it should be easy for the student to take a standardized test and come out equal to or ahead of set standards. A Norm-Referenced test compare a person?s score against the scores of a group of people who have already taken the same exam, called the ?norming group.? A NRT (Norm-Referenced Test) is designed to ?rank-order? test takers, or compare students? scores. To make comparing easier, exams are created in which the results end up graphed in a bell-like . Standardized Testing Essay Example For Students Standardized Testing Essay Standardized Testing Essay Every year thousands upon thousands of children, ages seven and upwards sit down to take their scheduled standardized tests. This generation has been classified as the most tested in history. Its progress through childhood and adolescence has been punctuated by targets, key stages, attainment levels, and qualifications (Stalin in School 8). Each year the government devises a new standard and then finds a way to test how each student measures up to this standard. They have come to the conclusion that the easiest way to chart the success of school reform is to follow the results of standardized testing. We will write a custom essay on Standardized Testing specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now But rating education strictly by the numbers is the wrong way to measure a process as complex as learning, and teaching kids how to memorize facts and remember dates is an altogether different achievement from teaching them how to make sense out of new ideas and experiences. This system of testing currently used is based on academic standards. These academic standards are clearly written expectations of what every child should know and be able to do at specific grade levels. They usually only test the core school subjects such as math, science, language arts, and social studies. For example, in Wisconsin, the standards were written for English/Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grade levels (Standards and Assessments QA). These standards are usually written by educators, and parents serving on special committees and sometimes by commercial test makers. However, as you will see these standards do not cover true learning. True learning involves teaching the students to think logically and form their own conclusions based on facts and inferences, not memorization and regurgitation of facts. These facts would be useless to the students if they were not able to use logic to connect these facts and make educated decisions. Nevertheless, the core school subjects do not include this. According to Brady, School subjects are just convenient organizers of information. As all effective teachers know, the real challenge isnt to stuff kids heads with secondhand information, but to teach them to think, to draw inferences, generate hypotheses, formulate generalizations, explore systemic relationships, make defensible value judgments, and so on. Education is not about how well a student can memorize a subject. It is about motivating the student to think and come to logical conclusions and hypothesis on their own. This being the case, the standardized tests are not conclusive and accurate of what education and learning are. However, many people feel that these tests do not measure any sort of knowledge, but rather indicates the economic background the child came from. According to Kohn, a major spokesperson on the damaging effects of standardized testing, What standardized tests actually measure best is the economic backgrounds of the groups that take them (Gallagher). If you broke down the income of the test takers family and measured it in increments of $10,000 you would get a graph where for each increment of income the students score would undoubtedly increase directly. This is because higher income areas have more teaching resources readily available which gives the students a varied and comprehensive learning environment and also attracts more qualified teachers. The high salaries and vast resources available attract many well-qualified teachers vying for the space. Therefore, the school district has an advantage of a larger pool in which to choose the most qualified teacher. These factors can give the students an advantage which makes the standardized tests a poor scale of students or schools progress but rather a good scale of their economic background. As the weight of standardized tests increase, so does the stress. Many students are feeling overly stressed by the vast number of tests they are expected to take and pass. .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea , .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .postImageUrl , .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea , .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:hover , .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:visited , .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:active { border:0!important; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:active , .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .ud372e01c74e66693f9716ac7235f1bea:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Matrix - the movie Essay It is pounded into them that this is your future, if you do well you will succeed in life or if you fail your life will follow. This stress has caused thousands of high school dropouts who get overwhelmed and dont feel they can make the grade. Some students get fed-up and at certain points become noncompliant. But the students arent the only ones who are affected by the stress of testing. According to Clarke, The pressure has . Standardized Testing Essay Example For Students Standardized Testing Essay Standardized tests have historically been used as measures of how students compare with each other or how much of a particular curriculum they have learned. Increasingly, standardized tests are being used to make major decisions about students, such as grade promotion or high school graduation, and schools. More and more often, they also are intended to shape the curriculum and instruction. Students across America have had to repeat classes because of the way standardized tests are used to pass or fail students. Students have had to rely on just one test to pass them for the whole semester (FairTest). Although the tests require students to retain information until the end of the semester, I believe it is wrong to allow just a single test to decide whether an entire semesters work will be rewarded will the credit that may have been well earned. Even general standardized tests such as the SAT, which almost every high school student has taken, are not fair to students who may come from a poor educational background (Standardized Minds). Students are at a disadvantage if they have test taking anxiety, a condition that many students suffer from. If a student is having a bad day or going through a rough time on a test day, this may also determine their entire semesters work. Standardized tests are often based on one topic, giving the student little room to express their strong points. Tests are called high-stakes when they used to make major decisions about a student, such as high school graduation or grade promotion. We will write a custom essay on Standardized Testing specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Tests are called standardized when all students answer the same questions under similar conditions and their responses are scored in the same way. Research has shown that high-stakes testing causes damage to individual students and education. It is not a reasonable method for improving schools. Test-taking anxiety is common among high school and college students. The anxiety can be quite stressful and sometimes weakening, both personally and academically. It is a condition that thousands of students suffer from and it is something that they cannot help or overcome by the time of a test. Students who suffer from this often get very panicked by exams, and most of the time they draw a blank during a test, even though they know the material well (High-stakes). This anxiety is very difficult for students to overcome especially when the test results will determine whether or not they will pass the course, or even graduate. I believe that the school board should take this into consideration and recognize that intelligent students who do well in school also suffer from this anxiety. Tests are designed to evaluate what was learned over a period of time, not to punish the student for what may confuse them on a test. When standardized tests contain other information that may not have been covered in class students often panic and do poorly on the exam. Aside from having the anxiety and stress from testing, students also go through times of loss, tragedy, crisis or any other life changing events that cause distraction in their school work. Every student has their bad days no matter what. How students cope with it is the issue. Many high school and college students have difficulty coping and dealing with their problems and it often reflects on not only their school work but more importantly their exams. The standardized testing system is not fair under these circumstances. I as well as many other students across America experience several days during which it is extremely difficult for me to concentrate and apply myself to the fullest while having other worries and concerns on my mind. With this in mind, it is wrong for these exams to be a determinant on the passing or failing of a course. .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 , .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .postImageUrl , .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 , .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:hover , .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:visited , .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:active { border:0!important; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:active , .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076 .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u1a5b1805ac98be150647e2c5574c5076:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Nutrition Essay The school board has not given students any other options or alternatives to accommodate them during hard times. Many times when students are going through a tragedy or crisis and are required to take a standardized test, they are overwhelmed with the stress of test taking anxiety at the same time (FairTest). Dont punish students for the states failure was the message from a standing-room-only crowd jamming a hearing .