Is the use of standardized tests improving education?
Standardize test is one of America’s educational plan for the No Child Left Behind Act in which they assume would help students the ability to think and create an intelligent mind. Instead of teachers engaging lesson plans from the classroom they are being forced to “teach to the test”. However this means it undermines student’s ability to show the types of creativity skills they have. A low score on the test can prevent a student from moving on to the next grade otherwise lead to firing teachers; this is because they can assume that the teachers didn’t do a good enough job on prepping the students for the test. Standardized test are neither fair nor objective and are unfair measure of student intelligence and academic performance.
Having to take the standardized test is unreliable and is no use in improving student’s educational knowledge. There are many reasons to why standardize testing isn’t useful to measure students knowledge. First example is that” Standardize test measure only a small portion of what make education meaningful, it cannot measure creativity, critical thinking, leadership etc…”. I chose this to support my thesis because it proves that test doesn’t necessarily measure all the qualities that the students may have, there isn’t any thing on the test to show whether the students have neither creativity skills nor a critical mind because the questions do not require real thoughts. Another example that I chose is “Standardized test are unfair and, discriminatory because students with diverse background, and skill levels are expected to answer questions written for the white, able majority.” I chose this because it brings to attention that the minority children don’t have many resources as the majority does and little marriage on the whites background in which most of the questions are written for. However this leads to the last example “special education student take the same test as other children, receiving few of the accommodations usually provided to them as part of their Individual Educational Plans (IEP).” I chose this because it clearly shows how unfair they created the test, having special education kids taking it should be banned. If these students have special learning needs how it is possible to give them the same test as normal students get how unfair is that. The standardize test should be banned from the system because it cannot be used to narrow down students ability.
Generally speaking standardized test do not promote student learning, it does not provide the actual educational things that students need to know this is why I dissent the use of the test. My first example “Teaching to the test “ can be a good thing, it simplify means focusing on essential content and
