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For and against standardized tests: Two student perspectives

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Do Standardized Tests Improve Education in America?

History of Standardized Testing

Standardized tests have been a part of American  education  since the mid-1800s. Their use skyrocketed after 2002’s  No Child Left Behind Act  (NCLB) mandated annual testing in all 50 states. However, failures in the education system have been blamed on rising  poverty  levels, teacher quality, tenure policies, and, increasingly, on the pervasive use of standardized tests.

Standardized tests are defined as “any test that’s administered, scored, and interpreted in a standard, predetermined manner,” according to by W. James Popham, former President of the American Educational Research Association. The tests often have multiple-choice questions that can be quickly graded by automated test scoring machines. Some tests also incorporate open-ended questions that require human grading. Read more history…

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1 Standardized tests offer an objective measurement of education. Teachers’ grading practices are naturally uneven and subjective. An A in one class may be a C in another. Teachers also have conscious or unconscious biases for a favorite student or against a rowdy student, for example. Standardized tests offer students a unified measure of their knowledge without these subjective differences. [ 56 ] “At their core, standardized exams are designed to be objective measures. They assess students based on a similar set of questions, are given under nearly identical testing conditions, and are graded by a machine or blind reviewer. They are intended to provide an accurate, unfiltered measure of what a student knows,” says Aaron Churchill, Ohio Research Director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. [ 56 ] Frequently states or local jurisdictions employ psychometricians to ensure tests are fair across populations of students. Mark Moulon, CEO at Pythias Consulting and psychometrician, offers an example: “What’s cool about psychometrics is that it will flag stuff that a human would never be able to notice. I remember a science test that had been developed in California and it asked about earthquakes. But the question was later used in a test that was administered in New England. When you try to analyze the New England kids with the California kids, you would get a differential item functioning flag because the California kids were all over the subject of earthquakes, and the kids in Vermont had no idea about earthquakes.” [ 57 ] With problematic questions removed, or adapted for different populations of students, standardized tests offer the best objective measure of what students have learned. Taking that information, schools can determine areas for improvement. As Bryan Nixon, former Head of School, noted, “When we receive standardized test data at Whitby, we use it to evaluate the effectiveness of our education program. We view standardized testing data as not only another set of data points to assess student performance, but also as a means to help us reflect on our curriculum. When we look at Whitby’s assessment data, we can compare our students to their peers at other schools to determine what we’re doing well within our educational continuum and where we need to invest more time and resources.” [ 58 ] Read More

Pro 2 Standardized tests help students in marginalized groups. “If I don’t have testing data to make sure my child’s on the right track, I’m not able to intervene and say there is a problem and my child needs more. And the community can’t say this school is doing well, this teacher needs help to improve, or this system needs new leadership…. It’s really important to have a statewide test because of the income disparity that exists in our society. Black and Brown excellence is real, but… it is unfair to say that just by luck of birth that a child born in [a richer section of town] is somehow entitled to a higher-quality education… Testing is a tool for us to hold the system accountable to make sure our kids have what they need,” explains Keri Rodrigues, Co-founder of the National Parents Union. [ 59 ] Advocates for marginalized groups of students, whether by race, learning disability, or other difference, can use testing data to prove a problem exists and to help solve the problem via more funding, development of programs, or other solutions. Civil rights education lawsuits wherein a group is suing a local or state government for better education almost always use testing data. [ 61 ] Sheryl Lazarus, Director of the National Center on Educational Outcomes at the University of Minnesota, states, “a real plus of these assessments is that… they have led to improvements in access to instruction for students with disabilities and English learners… Inclusion of students with disabilities and English learners in summative tests used for accountability allows us to measure how well the system is doing for these students, and then it is possible to fill in gaps in instructional opportunity.” [ 60 ] A letter signed by 12 civil rights organizations including the NAACP and the American Association of University Women, explains, “Data obtained through some standardized tests are particularly important to the civil rights community because they are the only available, consistent, and objective source of data about disparities in educational outcomes, even while vigilance is always required to ensure tests are not misused. These data are used to advocate for greater resource equity in schools and more fair treatment for students of color, low-income students, students with disabilities, and English learners… [W]e cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools.” [ 62 ] Read More

Pro 3 Standardized tests scores are good indicators of college and job success. Standardized tests can promote and offer evidence of academic rigor, which is invaluable in college as well as in students’ careers. Matthew Pietrafetta, Founder of Academic Approach, argues that the “tests create gravitational pull toward higher achievement.” [ 65 ] Elaine Riordan, senior communications professional at Actively Learn, states, “creating learning environments that lead to higher test scores is also likely to improve students’ long-term success in college and beyond… Recent research suggests that the competencies that the SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests are now evaluating are essential not just for students who will attend four-year colleges but also for those who participate in CTE [career and technical education] programs or choose to seek employment requiring associate degrees and certificates…. all of these students require the same level of academic mastery to be successful after high school graduation.” [ 66 ] Standardized test scores have long been correlated with better college and life outcomes. As Dan Goldhaber, Director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, and Umut Özek, senior researcher at the American Institutes for Research, explain, “students who score one standard deviation higher on math tests at the end of high school have been shown to earn 12% more annually, or $3,600 for each year of work life in 2001.… Similarly… test scores are significantly correlated not only with educational attainment and labor market outcomes (employment, work experience, choice of occupation), but also with risky behavior (teenage pregnancy, smoking, participation in illegal activities).” [ 67 ] Read More

Pro 4 Standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations. While grades and other measures are useful for teacher evaluations, standardized tests provide a consistent measure across classrooms and schools. Individual school administrators, school districts, and the state can compare teachers using test scores to show how each teacher has helped students master core concepts. [ 63 ] Timothy Hilton, a high school social studies teacher in South Central Los Angeles, states, “No self-respecting teacher would use a single student grade on a single assignment as a final grade for the entirety of a course, so why would we rely on one source of information in the determination of a teacher’s overall quality? The more data that can be provided, the more accurate the teacher evaluation decisions will end up being. Teacher evaluations should incorporate as many pieces of data as possible. Administration observation, student surveys, student test scores, professional portfolios, and on and on. The more data that is used, the more accurate the picture it will paint.” [ 64 ] Read More

Con 1 Standardized tests only determine which students are good at taking tests. Standardized test scores are easily influenced by outside factors: stress, hunger, tiredness, and prior teacher or parent comments about the difficulty of the test, among other factors. In short, the tests only show which students are best at preparing for and taking the tests, not what knowledge students might exhibit if their stomachs weren’t empty or they’d had a good night’s sleep. [ 68 ] [ 69 ] Further, students are tested on grade-appropriate material, but they are not re-tested to determine if they have learned information they tested poorly on the year before. Instead, as Steve Martinez, Superintendent of Twin Rivers Unified in California, and Rick Miller, Executive Director of CORE Districts, note: each “state currently reports yearly change, by comparing the scores of this year’s students against the scores of last year’s students who were in the same grade. Even though educators, parents and policymakers might think change signals impact, it says much more about the change in who the students are because it is not measuring the growth of the same student from one year to the next.” And, because each state develops its own tests, standardized tests are not necessarily comparable across state lines, leaving nationwide statistics shaky at best. [ 69 ] [ 71 ] [ 72 ] Brandon Busteed, Executive Director, Education & Workforce Development at the time of the quote, stated, “Despite an increased focus on standardized testing, U.S. results in international comparisons show we have made no significant improvement over the past 20 years…. The U.S. most recently ranked 23rd, 39th and 25th in reading, math and science, respectively. The last time Americans celebrated being 23rd, 39th and 25th in anything was … well, never. Our focus on standardized testing hasn’t helped us improve our results!” [ 73 ] Busteed asks, “What if our overreliance on standardized testing has actually inhibited our ability to help students succeed and achieve in a multitude of other dimensions? For example, how effective are schools at identifying and educating students with high entrepreneurial talent? Or at training students to apply creative thinking to solve messy and complex issues with no easy answers?” [ 73 ] Read More

Con 2 Standardized tests are racist, classist, and sexist. The origin of American standardized tests are those created by psychologist Carl Brigham, PhD, for the Army during World War I, which was later adapted to become the SAT. The Army tests were created specifically to segregate soldiers by race, because at the time science inaccurately linked intelligence and race. [ 74 ] Racial bias has not been stripped from standardized tests. “Too often, test designers rely on questions which assume background knowledge more often held by White, middle-class students. It’s not just that the designers have unconscious racial bias; the standardized testing industry depends on these kinds of biased questions in order to create a wide range of scores,” explains Young Whan Choi, Manager of Performance Assessments Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California. He offers an example from his own 10th grade class, “a student called me over with a question. With a puzzled look, she pointed to the prompt asking students to write about the qualities of someone who would deserve a ‘key to the city.’ Many of my students, nearly all of whom qualified for free and reduced lunch, were not familiar with the idea of a ‘key to the city.’” [ 76 ] Wealthy kids, who would be more familiar with a “key to the city,” tend to have higher standardized test scores due to differences in brain development caused by factors such as “access to enriching educational resources, and… exposure to spoken language and vocabulary early in life.” Plus, as Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor of California Community Colleges, points out, “Many well-resourced students have far greater access to test preparation, tutoring and taking the test multiple times, opportunities not afforded the less affluent…. [T]hese admissions tests are a better measure of students’ family background and economic status than of their ability to succeed” [ 77 ] [ 78 ] Journalist and teacher Carly Berwick explains, “All students do not do equally well on multiple choice tests, however. Girls tend to do less well than boys and [girls] perform better on questions with open-ended answers, according to a [Stanford University] study, …which found that test format alone accounts for 25 percent of the gender difference in performance in both reading and math. Researchers hypothesize that one explanation for the gender difference on high-stakes tests is risk aversion, meaning girls tend to guess less.” [ 68 ] Read More

Con 3 Standardized tests scores are not predictors of future success. At best, Standardized tests can only evaluate rote knowledge of math, science, and English. The tests do not evaluate creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, artistic ability, or other knowledge areas that cannot be judged by scoring a sheet of bubbles filled in with a pencil. Grade point averages (GPA) are a five times stronger indicator of college success than standardized tests, according to a study of 55,084 Chicago public school students. One of the authors, Elaine M. Allensworth, Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium, states, “GPAs measure a very wide variety of skills and behaviors that are needed for success in college, where students will encounter widely varying content and expectations. In contrast, standardized tests measure only a small set of the skills that students need to succeed in college, and students can prepare for these tests in narrow ways that may not translate into better preparation to succeed in college.” [ 83 ] “Earning good grades requires consistent behaviors over time—showing up to class and participating, turning in assignments, taking quizzes, etc.—whereas students could in theory do well on a test even if they do not have the motivation and perseverance needed to achieve good grades. It seems likely that the kinds of habits high school grades capture are more relevant for success in college than a score from a single test,” explains Matthew M. Chingos, Vice President of Education Data and Policy at the Urban Institute. [ 84 ] Read More

Con 4 Standardized tests are unfair metrics for teacher evaluations. As W. James Popham, former President of the American Educational Research Association, notes, “standardized achievement tests should not be used to determine the effectiveness of a state, a district, a school, or a teacher. There’s almost certain to be a significant mismatch between what’s taught and what’s tested.” [ 81 ] “An assistant superintendent… pointed out that in one of my four kindergarten classes, the student scores were noticeably lower, while in another, the students were outperforming the other three classes. He recommended that I have the teacher whose class had scored much lower work directly with the teacher who seemed to know how to get higher scores from her students. Seems reasonable, right? But here was the problem: The “underperforming” kindergarten teacher and the “high-performing” teacher were one and the same person,” explains Margaret Pastor, Principal of Stedwick Elementary School in Maryland. [ 82 ] As a result, 27 states and D.C. have stopped using standardized tests in teacher evaluations. [ 79 ] [ 80 ] [ 88 ] Read More

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We need to move beyond standardized testing

How an outdated system designed for the Industrial Revolution came to define schools today.

Can welding a horseshoe count as a math test? At Northern Cass School in Fargo, North Dakota, the answer is a resounding yes!

The American education system has long been obsessed with tests, but have we stopped to ask if students actually benefit from them? With education’s heavy emphasis on standardized tests, it could be easy to assume that evidence supports the positive impacts of testing students — but no such evidence exists. 

“Let’s blow up the system and give kids some control over their education,” proposed Dr. Corey Steiner, superintendent of Northern Cass School.

Stand Together journalist Justin Toops recently asked two crucial questions: Why do schools use high-stakes testing? And is there a better way to measure learning?

Looking for answers, Toops took a film crew to observe Northern Cass — a public school — and One Stone School — a private school run by students.

But first things first: How did we get here?

Standardized testing serves an outdated version of the U.S.

Where did standardized testing come from, anyway? 

“I think it’s worth going back and looking at the history of standardized testing in the U.S.,” said Kerry McDonald, senior fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education. “It was really focused on obedience and compliance and order and efficiency.” 

Standardized testing became popular around the same time as mass compulsory schooling. In mid-19th century America, testing and mass schooling composed the de facto education model for training youth to join the workforce of the Industrial Revolution. Testing data became a new standard for metrics to compare and rank schools — allowing schools to compete for students and funding. 

But this model has a huge blindspot: It doesn’t recognize students as individuals.

“As this compulsory schooling spread throughout the U.S., standardized testing also spread with it, and it really creates this artificial version of learning,” said McDonald. 

Testing can’t show whether students have internalized knowledge. Standardized testing has become a superficial way for U.S. schools to outperform each other — on paper. The fallout from this model continued for decades, pressuring teachers to deliver results at all costs and creating a culture of stress, anxiety, and depression among students. 

Sign up for Stand Together's K-12 newsletter and get stories, ideas, and advice from changemakers who are transforming education across the country.

2001: The year that put the stress in tests

In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act changed things — and not necessarily in a good way. 

This new law introduced the idea of holding schools accountable for ensuring student “success” — measured via testing. With No Child Left Behind, the “customer” in education shifted from students in the classroom to government policymakers. It fell to educators, parents, and students to deliver results that would ensure schools continued to receive government funding. 

“This supercharged standardized testing in the American schooling system,” said McDonald. 

When NCLB was introduced, the United States was globally ranked No. 18 in math, No. 14 in science, and No. 15 in reading. There was a lot of pressure to get ahead of those numbers and increase student performance. But in real life, “holding schools accountable” turned into something way more impactful: punishment for schools if students’ test scores weren’t up to par. 

Policymakers intended to incentivize improvement among educators, but the reality was that teachers could lose their jobs if students didn’t perform well on standardized tests. Teachers shifted their focus from student learning to test outcomes. Many educators even resorted to cheating or misrepresenting students’ scores. 

In 2014, researchers found that 191 teachers in 70 schools across the Washington, D.C., area were falsifying students’ test scores, even going so far as to erase wrong answers and insert correct ones. 

When the Every Student Succeeds Act was introduced in 2015, it appeared to offer welcome relief for both students and educators. A replacement for No Child Left Behind, ESSA eased many of the previous prescriptive requirements for measuring student success — but it still enforced testing and student achievement frameworks in schools. 

It quickly became apparent that ESSA was essentially No Child Left Behind in a new package. 

“Even though the No Child Left Behind Act was eventually replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act, there is still this expectation of regular standardized testing,” McDonald said. “The downside of that is that it really created a culture of teaching and testing. Teachers and administrators were being held accountable to the government. It inevitably led to an environment in which teachers were teaching to a test, whether they wanted to or not.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 40% of students experience testing anxiety. This overwhelms the parts of the brain used for reading, comprehension, and processing. 

In other words: Instead of learning and retaining information, students’ brains are being rewired to focus on memorizing information solely for tests. The higher a student’s testing anxiety, the worse they’ll do, no matter how well they have learned the material elsewhere.

“It creates this culture of doing well on a test, whether or not you’re actually learning that information,” said McDonald. “Maybe you’re just being tested on it and being able to regurgitate for that test, and then you’re forgetting it.”

Obsession with test performance deprives students of the freedom to explore their unique goals, strengths, and learning styles. 

“Standardized testing measures a very narrow part of the human experience,” McDonald said. “More and more parents are recognizing that, and they want an education system today that’s more reflective of the personalization that we enjoy in every other area of our lives but that’s been lacking in American education.”

Testing isn’t useless for measuring student learning. However, it only offers a snapshot of student comprehension and should be used as one of several methods for gauging understanding and mastery. 

“I think that there’s no one right way of approaching education,” McDonald said. “I think that’s why so many parents are excited about these emerging, unconventional education models, [and] letting students’ interests and passions guide that learning model that’s not forcing young people into a standardized box.”

So, what are the alternatives? 

In our next two articles, Toops visits seemingly impossible realities: a private school that demonstrates how to make report cards a thing of the past and a public school where state mandates and personalized education co-exist. Both show what might be possible if we move away from tradition and look toward a brighter future for every individual student.

What Toops and his crew discover could completely change Americans’ beliefs about what it means to learn — and the purpose of “school.”

One Stone School is supported by Stand Together Trust , which provides funding and strategic capabilities to innovators, scholars, and social entrepreneurs to develop new and better ways to tackle America’s biggest problems.

Learn more about  Stand Together’s education efforts and explore ways you can  partner with us .

3 homeschooling innovators helping parents better serve children’s personal and cultural needs

The flexible learning model isn’t just for private schools.

A school with no tests and no grades may better prepare students for the future.

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Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, andre m. perry andre m. perry senior fellow - brookings metro , director - center for community uplift.

March 30, 2021

This piece originally appeared in  The Hechinger Report ; the version below has been lightly edited for style.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is refusing to back down on a federal requirement that states must administer standardized tests this year, although a letter to state leaders from the Department of Education last month said that states will have flexibility on how to apply results. States concerned about the safety of administering a test during a pandemic may implement shortened versions of assessments.

This relief from the hammer of accountability, if not from the tests themselves, has gotten a mixed reception from anti-testing advocates, school leaders, and teachers who are still trying to ready schools for face-to-face learning. They’re right: Greater accountability and standardized testing won’t give students the technology they need, give teachers the necessary PPE to stay safe, or give families the income to better house and feed themselves during the pandemic so that kids can focus on learning. And if there was ever a time to see how misguided our accountability systems are in relation to addressing root causes of achievement disparities, it’s now.

On its face, relieving students, teachers, and families from the grip of test-based accountability makes sense. We know student achievement, particularly in low-income schools and districts, will dip due to circumstances related to the pandemic and social distancing. We know the source of the decline.

And we currently use standardized tests well beyond what they were designed to do, which is to measure a few areas of academic achievement. Achievement tests were not designed for the purposes of promoting or grading students, evaluating teachers, or evaluating schools. In fact, connecting these social functions to achievement test data corrupts what the tests are measuring. In statistics, this is called Campbell’s Law. When a score has been connected to a teacher’s pay or job status, educators will inevitably be drawn toward teaching to the test, and schools toward hiring to the test and paying to the test, rather than making sure students get the well-rounded education they need and deserve.

However, there is still a role for testing and assessment. We need to know the full extent of the damage from the last 12 months beyond the impact on academics. For one, the federal government should have states take a roll call to see who hasn’t been in school. The government must also assess families’ technological needs if it is to properly support the states financially. In other words, states should be using multiple assessments to address the range of needs of students and their teachers. This is what the focus of academic and non-academic assessment should have always been, not a means to punish the people who are dealing with conditions that erode the quality of an education.

As many have said in different contexts, the pandemic exposed existing structural inequalities that are driving racial disparities. This is as true in education as it is in other sectors. Limited broadband and computer access, home and food insecurity, deferred maintenance on buildings, uneven employment benefits among non-teaching school staff, and fewer resources for schools that serve children of color were throttling academic achievement before the pandemic. They will certainly widen achievement gaps during and after.

As a condition for receiving a waiver, Cardona is requiring states to report on the number of chronically absent students and students’ access to computers and high-speed internet, a request that raised the ire of some Republican lawmakers. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) objected in a March 25 letter that the requirements for information on chronic absenteeism and access technologies as conditions are “not permitted under ESEA as amended by ESSA.” The letter continued: “They are both outside the scope of what states are seeking to be waived and violate specific prohibitions on the Secretary requiring states to report new data beyond existing reporting requirements.”

Cardona is right in his effort to use tests properly. Gathering information is essential if we really care about closing gaps in educational opportunity and achievement. Information shines light on structural problems. When the effects of structural problems on student learning are ignored, teachers and school boards are blamed for any deficiencies in student performance. Racism ends up pointing a finger at Black education leaders, teachers, and kids for disparities that result from systemic racism.

This is why we should rethink how we use tests in the future.

States have historically found ways to starve majority-Black and -Brown districts of the resources they need to thrive. Let’s be clear: We need to hold racist policies and practices accountable.

Segregation and school financing systems that reinforce segregated housing arrangements reflect the application of racist attitudes about Black people and communities that show up in outcomes. And since No Child Left Behind ushered in an era of accountability in 2001, those accountability systems have largely failed to address those sources of inequality. Black districts in particular have felt as much pain from testing as from the negative conditions that surround schooling. School and district takeovers, mass firings, and the imposition of charter schools have not been applied fairly or evenly because testing didn’t identify the real problems.

Amid a pandemic, testing is a necessary inconvenience to help us understand how we can better address structural racism and other root causes of academic disparities. But if tests aren’t used as a way to support Black districts, students, and families by leading to solutions for structural inequities, then they will only facilitate the epidemic of racism that existed before the pandemic.

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Education Secretary: Standardized Tests Should No Longer Be a ‘Hammer’

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Standardized tests should be used as “a flashlight” on what works in education not as “a hammer” to force outcomes, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said during a speech last week.

The statement reflects a shift in thinking since annual testing became federal law more than 20 years ago, and it echoes past comments from Cardona, who warned states against using 2022 NAEP scores punitively when they showed steep drops in reading and math in September.

But federal policies stemming from the two-decade-old No Child Left Behind Act and its successor, the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, make it difficult for states to use standardized tests in any other way, policy experts say. And despite changing attitudes, there’s little indication that the nation’s schools will move away from the current form of test-based accountability anytime soon.

“It doesn’t matter what the sentiment is,” said Jack Schneider, an education professor and policy analyst at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell who is also an advocate for including alternative measures like school climate, teacher ability, and school resources in accountability policies. “The law is structured so that it really isn’t much of a flashlight.”

Cardona did not announce any new testing-related policies or plans for the Education Department in his Jan. 24 speech to educators , so it’s unclear if the agency plans to address concerns about test-based accountability through grants, waivers, or rulemaking. The department hasn’t announced any plans to revise standardized testing policy.

Still, his words reflect ever-changing opinions about standardized tests and what role they should play in evaluating school performance.

“He’s trying to bridge two eras,” Schneider said. “Right now, we are still very much in the era of test-based accountability because that’s the law. He also recognizes that’s not going to persuade very many people for much longer as a mechanism for school improvement.”

The lasting impact of No Child Left Behind

The debate over school accountability and standardized testing has been going on for over half a century, said Daniel Koretz, an education professor at Harvard University who has dedicated his research to high-stakes testing.

The original designers of standardized tests envisioned the tests as a way to measure individual students’ performance, not as an aggregate measure of schools’ performance, Koretz said.

They “were adamant that these tests cannot provide a complete measure of what we care about, what our goals of education are,” he said. “They’re necessarily incomplete.”

Despite that original intention, states and the federal government found standardized tests to be an efficient way to determine whether schools were performing to standards. And test proponents have said they’re necessary for ensuring English learners, students with disabilities, students of color, and low-income students don’t fall behind.

The government’s role in using tests to evaluate schools—rather than individual students—was solidified when former President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.

The law, which had bipartisan backing and functioned as an update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, required states to test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school with a goal of bringing them all to a state-determined level of proficiency by the 2013-14 school year.

It also established sanctions for schools that failed to stay on track and make “adequate yearly progress” with test scores. The law gave states—among other measures—the power to shut down schools that missed achievement targets several years in a row. Waivers to the law during the Obama administration loosened some of these rules but also required states to set up systems to evaluate teachers in part based on student test performance.

“That enormously ramped up the pressure, particularly in low-achieving schools,” Koretz said. “At that point, teachers really had no choice. They really could either fail, cut corners, or cheat.”

The law was later reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 , which loosened the federal government’s role in K-12 schools, removed requirements that states evaluate teacher performance based on student outcomes, and gave states power to decide what should happen to schools that miss performance targets.

But the law maintained the standardized testing requirements established in NCLB.

“The heart of NCLB, which is test-based accountability, remains in place,” Schneider said.

Advocating for a balanced approach

Some who oppose test-based accountability aren’t against standardized tests themselves. Large-scale standardized tests are useful in measuring how students in a certain state or across the country are performing compared to their peers.

But they are also limited. Critics say they offer only a snapshot of a student’s understanding of core subjects, making it difficult to determine whether a student performed poorly because they weren’t taught the material or because of outside factors like their mood, health, or home life.

Instead, testing experts say they’d like to see a more balanced approach to standardized tests. That means having more coherence among the large number of state and national assessments so they build off each other and can better help inform instruction and curriculum, said Scott Marion, the executive director of the Center for Assessment, a nonprofit focused on improving assessment and accountability practices.

It also means measuring students’ progress over time and the skills they’ve acquired, not just changes in their scores from one test to another. Tests also need to provide feedback to teachers more quickly to be useful, Marion said.

“I don’t care that [a student] went up six points—that might be good,” Marion said. “But did she learn how to better organize her paragraphs, vary her sentence structure, things like that?”

States can help ease the burden of accountability on schools by using the more balanced approach, and some states have, Marion said. But unless there are changes to federal law there will always be pressure for schools to produce high test scores.

The political outlook

Cardona’s message indicates a shifting perspective on the role standardized tests play in society, but not much has been done to actually change the federal law that lays out standardized tests’ role.

The Education Department could establish waivers, giving states more flexibility to create pilot projects to improve testing systems. And Congress could rewrite the law to put less of a focus on accountability.

But ultimately improvement would require more respect for education, Koretz said.

“Education has a very low status in this country,” he said. “A lot of policymakers don’t respect teachers or any other educators. They don’t trust them. So, who are you going to trust to go in and evaluate schools if you don’t trust educators?”

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The Misguided War on the SAT

Colleges have fled standardized tests, on the theory that they hurt diversity. That’s not what the research shows.

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By David Leonhardt

David Leonhardt has been reporting on opportunity in higher education for more than two decades.

• Jan. 7, 2024

After the Covid pandemic made it difficult for high school students to take the SAT and ACT, dozens of selective colleges dropped their requirement that applicants do so. Colleges described the move as temporary, but nearly all have since stuck to a test-optional policy. It reflects a backlash against standardized tests that began long before the pandemic, and many people have hailed the change as a victory for equity in higher education.

Now, though, a growing number of experts and university administrators wonder whether the switch has been a mistake. Research has increasingly shown that standardized test scores contain real information, helping to predict college grades, chances of graduation and post-college success. Test scores are more reliable than high school grades, partly because of grade inflation in recent years .

Without test scores, admissions officers sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between applicants who are likely to do well at elite colleges and those who are likely to struggle. Researchers who have studied the issue say that test scores can be particularly helpful in identifying lower-income students and underrepresented minorities who will thrive. These students do not score as high on average as students from affluent communities or white and Asian students. But a solid score for a student from a less privileged background is often a sign of enormous potential.

“Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades,” Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, recently wrote . Stuart Schmill — the dean of admissions at M.I.T., one of the few schools to have reinstated its test requirement — told me, “Just getting straight A’s is not enough information for us to know whether the students are going to succeed or not.”

An academic study released last summer by the group Opportunity Insights, covering the so-called Ivy Plus colleges (the eight in the Ivy League, along with Duke, M.I.T., Stanford and the University of Chicago), showed little relationship between high school grade point average and success in college. The researchers found a strong relationship between test scores and later success.

Likewise, a faculty committee at the University of California system — led by Dr. Henry Sánchez, a pathologist, and Eddie Comeaux, a professor of education — concluded in 2020 that test scores were better than high school grades at predicting student success in the system’s nine colleges, where more than 230,000 undergraduates are enrolled. The relative advantage of test scores has grown over time, the committee found.

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Let’s Have Better Debates About Standardized Tests

Ben Paris argues that test critics downplay the disadvantages of test-optional policies.

By  Ben Paris

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Reasonable people can come to different conclusions about the proper role of standardized testing, what qualities should be measured and how to measure them. Those debates are healthy and productive. It’s less productive when we stake out our positions without giving opposing arguments a fair hearing. Even worse are our tendencies to misrepresent opposing views.

Akil Bello’s recent piece “ The Misguided War on Test Optional ” illustrates this problem. Consider the way Bello misrepresents opposing views. Bello, who advocates for test-optional admission policies, describes one opponent as having published a “loving ode to elitism.” Supporters of standardized tests, in his account, “tend to look not at whom the tests hurt or what the tests miss but instead their sorting power.” Their core arguments against test-optional and other policies assume that “the purpose of college is to rank and sort members of society” and that the tools for doing so “should exist unquestioned in perpetuity.”

In my 30 years of experience in assessment and test preparation, I haven’t met people who hold the views Bello describes. Instead, I’ve found that people in this industry believe that to improve education, we need to take an honest look at measurable outcomes.

We often disagree about what should be on the tests , and how important the tests should be, but we tend to think that:

• The tests measure some important things. We believe this because of data we see on the predictive value of the tests, our examination of tests themselves, and/or our experience with people who take them.
• There are meaningful skill differences between people with very different scores.
• Standardized tests provide a common measure for people who went to different schools and had different academic experiences.
• The explanatory power of high school grades is diluted by grade inflation and differences between and within schools, classes and teachers.
• Other aspects of the application, such as essays and recommendations, deserve a place in the process, but are highly subjective and even more influenced by societal inequality than standardized tests are.

For these reasons and more, many of us believe that standardized tests deserve a place in the current admissions process. Reasonable people can disagree with any of the above conclusions, but we should be able to have that debate without misrepresenting opposing views. This particular tactic is part of the reason why our debates are so dysfunctional. Arguing against exaggerations of opposing views gets more attention and rallies our allies but it also alienates those who disagree while impeding common understanding and compromise.

We can do better. Let’s return to the principle that we should understand opposing views before forming an opinion. To that end, here’s a quick attempt at describing the views of those who want to abolish the testing requirements. They typically believe that the tests are unfair, irrelevant and magnify social inequality. They might believe that the tests measure the wrong things; others believe that no test could deserve a place in the process. Test opponents are concerned about demographic differences in test scores. For many of them, the differences themselves are conclusive evidence against the tests. They know plenty of people with great scores who didn’t succeed in life, and plenty who had terrible scores and achieved great success. And even if tests have some value, test critics question whether they are worth the costs involved—not just financial costs but also the time involved in preparing for the tests.

Once we acknowledge opposing views, we need to do more to bridge our divides. We also have to make good arguments and recognize the weaknesses of our own positions. Bello’s essay provides lessons there, though maybe not the ones he intended. For example:

• He argues that “all the benefits of testing continue to exist in a test-optional environment, though critics of the policy desperately want to pretend they do not.” This conclusion is based on the fact that at most colleges, applicants can and do submit scores, and therefore are able to take advantage of a good one. But this is misleading unless you know how colleges evaluate the decision not to submit scores. If people with low scores can bury them without it counting against them, then the difference between good scores and bad scores is diluted. If submitting grades were somehow optional, and people could hide their transcripts without penalty, wouldn’t it be fair to say that the advantages of good grades would be reduced? Moreover, the current test-optional approach makes it very difficult to tell whether a score would help you , which means that many students with scores that would help them don’t submit them, and many students who could earn scores that would help them don’t try their best because they think the tests don’t matter.
• Bello also asks, “Does creating winners and losers serve the country? Or does it merely perpetuate inequality and exclusion?” Are those the only two options? I’m pretty good at multiple choice tests, and I can think of other possibilities. Setting up false choices is a classic debate strategy that every citizen should know, and they should also know that false alternatives are debunked when one proposes reasonable alternatives. It’s inaccurate to describe the tests as “creating winners and losers,” as though the tests are arbitrarily anointing the chosen few. And the interrelationship between tests and inequality is, well, complicated . But there’s definitely more to it than choosing between the options Bello provides.
• Here’s my favorite: Bello claims that “the ire directed at the optional testing but not other optional elements of the application process should raise questions.” This tactic itself should raise questions. No matter what your opponents say, you can always cast doubt on their motives by saying that they should have been paying attention to something else, and their failure to do so raises disturbing questions about their priorities. Please watch out whenever anyone does this! It's perfectly legitimate for test professionals to make an argument within their expertise, even if they could have said something else.

There’s more to tackle in Bello’s essay, but I hope the above is sufficient to nudge the debate to a healthier place. But let’s not stop there. Often, supporters of tests are on the defensive, held to account for everything wrong in education. But let’s look at the other side. People don’t like tests, for reasons that are easy to understand, but what happens when they’re gone ? Colleges still need to make admissions decisions, and getting rid of tests increases the influence of grades and other aspects of the application, and are we sure that’s a good thing? Would we be OK with making college more of an extension of high school, which is often an uninspiring trudge of compliance and punishment? Is it really better to force people to take tons of Advanced Placement courses that don’t interest them just to tread water with other applicants who have flawless GPAs? Shouldn’t there be a way for people who reject this unethical treadmill to demonstrate their skills?

And what happens when we bury relevant evidence of students’ inability to understand what they read and their inadequate math skills? Do those problems go away? Of course not. When students are in over their heads, they fail out, drop out, pick easier majors, and generally have a miserable time in college. It’s easy to feel sympathy for the people who don’t get into their target colleges because their test scores are too low, but let’s also have sympathy for the people who think they are ready for college but aren’t. Let’s consider the 40 million people who left college without a degree , and the high percentage of those people who are behind on their student loan payments . While many factors contribute to this unacceptable failure rate, the high percentage of high school graduates who are unprepared for college is a part of the story we shouldn’t ignore.

Keep in mind that while our high college dropout rates are a serious problem, there are also consequences when unprepared students stay in college and acquire degrees. Colleges are measured in part by graduation rates. Professors are measured in part by student evaluations, and student evaluations are highly dependent on expected grades , resulting in unbelievable pressure to give OK students great grades and unskilled students passing grades . Everyone in the educational chain has an incentive to push these students along, and that’s why we need a more objective measure of what students are actually learning.

Denying reality catches up to you eventually. There’s a reason why so many people who don’t want to go to college spend years of their lives and untold thousands of dollars to acquire this credential: nobody trusts high school diplomas. And now, grade inflation and legitimate questions about the value of college are eroding the perceived importance of college degrees, which forces people to acquire graduate degrees just to be competitive in a global job market. We’re caught in a prisoner’s dilemma: No one would design this system from scratch, but individual incentives push us to create a system that’s worse for everyone.

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For these reasons and more, standardized tests provide a needed counterweight to negative trends in education. I'd be thrilled if high school education were good enough to be a sufficient indicator of who is ready for college and who can handle the rigor of our most challenging courses. But that’s not where we are now, and hiding evidence of our problems only makes them worse. Making progress here depends on cooperation from all kinds of people, and turning the debate over standardized testing into another example of our dysfunctional debate culture works against this goal.

Ben Paris is a private tutor and learning designer with more than 25 years of experience in test preparation and educational assessment. He has designed test-preparation courses, trained hundreds of teachers, and personally taught thousands of students how to succeed on standardized tests.

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Examining the Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing

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Like many issues in public education , standardized testing can be a controversial topic among parents, teachers, and voters. Many people say standardized testing provides an accurate measurement of student performance and teacher effectiveness. Others say such a one-size-fits-all approach to assessing academic achievement can be inflexible or even biased. Regardless of the diversity of opinion, there are some common arguments for and against standardized testing in the classroom .

Standardized Testing Pros

Proponents of standardized testing say that it is the best means of comparing data from a diverse population, allowing educators to digest large amounts of information quickly. They argue that:

It's accountable.  Probably the greatest benefit of standardized testing is that educators and schools are responsible for teaching students what they are required to know for these standardized tests. This is mostly because these scores become public record, and teachers and schools that don’t perform up to par can come under intense examination. This scrutiny can lead to the loss of jobs. In some cases, a school can be closed or taken over by the state.

It's analytical.  Without standardized testing, this comparison would not be possible. Public school students in Texas , for example, are required to take standardized tests, allowing test data from Amarillo to be compared to scores in Dallas. Being able to accurately analyze data is a primary reason that many states have adopted the Common Core state standards .

It's structured.  Standardized testing is accompanied by a set of established standards or an instructional framework to guide classroom learning and test preparation. This incremental approach creates benchmarks to measure student progress over time.

It's objective.  Standardized tests are often scored by computers or by people who do not directly know the student to remove the chance that bias would affect the scoring. Tests are also developed by experts, and each question undergoes an intense process to ensure its validity—that it properly assesses the content—and its reliability, which means that the question tests consistently over time.

It's granular.  The data generated by testing can be organized according to established criteria or factors, such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and special needs. This approach provides schools with data to develop targeted programs and services for improving student performance.

Standardized Testing Cons

Opponents of standardized testing say educators have become too fixated on scores and preparing for these exams. Some of the most common arguments against testing are:

It's inflexible.  Some students may excel in the classroom yet not perform well on a standardized test because they're unfamiliar with the format or develop test anxiety. Family strife, mental and physical health issues, and language barriers can all affect a student's test score. But standardized tests don't allow personal factors to be taken into consideration.

It's a waste of time.  Standardized testing causes many teachers to teach to the tests, meaning they only spend instructional time on material that will appear on the test. Opponents say this practice lacks creativity and can hinder a student’s overall learning potential.

It can't measure true progress.  Standardized testing only evaluates one-time performance instead of a student's progress and proficiency over time. Many would argue that teacher and student performance should be evaluated for growth over the course of the year instead of one single test.

It's stressful.  Teachers and students alike feel test stress. For educators, poor student performance may result in a loss of funding and teachers being fired. For students, a bad test score may mean missing out on admission to the college of their choice or even being held back. In Oklahoma, for example, high school students must pass four standardized tests in order to graduate, regardless of their GPA. (The state gives seven standardized end-of-instruction (EOI) exams in Algebra I, Algebra II, English II, English III, Biology I, geometry and U.S. history. Students who fail to pass at least four of these exams can’t get a high school diploma.)

It's political.  With public and charter schools both competing for the same public funds, politicians and educators have come to rely even more on standardized test scores. Some opponents of testing argue that low-performing schools are unfairly targeted by politicians who use academic performance as an excuse to further their own agendas.

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Pros & Cons of Standardized Testing for College Admissions

Debates around standardized testing have been around for as long as standardized test scores have been part of education in the United States. Some argue that students undergo too much testing: by their high schools, by the state, for college admissions, etc. Others argue that standardized tests, such as the SAT and the ACT, are the only fair way to evaluate student achievement.

During the past seventy-five years, arguments about the value of the SAT and the ACT have not eliminated these tests. Yet, these tests have changed. The SAT, for instance, was originally intended to be an IQ test, a perfect encapsulation of a student’s intelligence. Now, college admissions officers know that an SAT score is not a whole picture of a high school student’s abilities. It’s just one piece among many they use to evaluate applicants.

Nevertheless, knowing some of the pros and cons of standardized testing can help you better understand the American education system as a whole and how to approach it.

The Pros of Standardized Testing for College Admissions

Below, you can find some of the major arguments in favor of standardized testing. Schools, colleges, and states that require standardized testing generally believe these to be true, even if they are also aware of some of the downsides to standardized tests (see below).

Standardized Testing Is Fair

This is probably the biggest argument proponents of standardized testing, using the SAT or ACT for college admissions, make: it’s fair. It’s a single test, taken under equal conditions, to measure student achievement fairly. By this logic, standardized test scores from the SAT and ACT are some of the only aspects of a student’s academic performance that aren’t determined by their town or school.

It Creates a Universal Standard for Education

The obvious purpose of standardized testing is to create a standard. Proponents of standardized testing argue that some kind of examination outside of school curricula—which can vary widely by school district—can help an education system better compare students from very different backgrounds because all these students took the exact same test. By measuring students against that universal standard, it becomes easier to evaluate and rank them.

It Holds Teachers and Students Accountable

In the same way that standardized tests provide a standard to measure students, they can also help set larger educational standards for schools across a state or country. Standardized tests make educational initiatives like No Child Left Behind or the Common Core more concrete by checking students’ academic progress. If students in particular school districts are struggling to perform at grade level, superintendents and governments know to get involved.

The SAT and ACT Shows Analytical Progress

Standardized testing can also help standardize individual students’ educations. In addition to comparing students against one another or identifying problematic schools or districts, standardized tests can also illustrate student progress over time. Taking the same or similar tests over the years can allow students to indicate measurable improvement.

It Provides an Inclusive Opportunity

Standardized tests, such as the SAT and ACT, can give students from under-performing high schools a chance to prove that they have mastered ample academic material despite their circumstances. Because standardized tests are not tied to any one high school curriculum, they can offer an inclusive opportunity for students to highlight their successful performance. Proponents argue that standardized testing can help level the playing field in public education.

Many Professionals Must Take High-Stakes Standardized Tests

Finally, while much of the arguing around standardized testing is focused on high school students and younger, the fact is that standardized testing is often a fact of life well beyond secondary school. Anyone who wants to become a doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer, actuary, architect, or practitioner of another specialized profession will eventually have to excel at a standardized test. Given that, why not become familiar with test-taking in secondary school?

The Cons of Standardized Testing

On the other hand, many people do not consider the SAT and ACT to be valuable or valid assessment tool for evaluating student performance. This is why some school systems are pushing back on things like Common Core state standards and ever more colleges are becoming test-optional . Below you’ll find some of the main arguments against standardized testing.

The SAT and ACT Don’t Measure Intelligence—Only Wealth

While proponents argue that standardized tests provide an objective measure of student achievement, the data is more complicated. In fact, research suggests that the best predictor of success on the SAT is socioeconomic status rather than one’s education or grade level. Opponents of the SAT argue that this inequity arises because wealthy families have the time and money for test preparation resources and services, which essentially means that a good score can be purchased.

It Restricts Teachers’ Effectiveness and Creativity

Another major argument is that an over-reliance on test data to measure student performance negatively impacts teachers’ ability to actually do their jobs. A standardized test at the end of the school year can disrupt a teacher’s curricular plan and force him or her to cover material that might be less relevant to his or her students. Similarly, many teachers find constant testing over the course of the year to be disruptive and unproductive to student learning.

The SAT and ACT Can Negatively Impact Students’ Confidence

Another argument is that standardized testing, such as the SAT and ACT, causes otherwise successful students to lose confidence in themselves and their abilities. Many students suffer from test anxiety, meaning that they do not perform at their usual level because they find the experience of test-taking so stressful. Evaluating a student’s performance only through an impartial test can also negatively affect graduation rates if low scores demoralize students.

The SAT and ACT Unfairly Affect Public School Funding

Because standardized testing data is a matter of public record, it affects funding for public schools. However, many private schools are exempt from state and federal testing requirements, which means that those students are not bound to the same testing cycle. Meanwhile, public schools that face more significant challenges can end up being cut off from the state and federal support they need if their test results are not making the grade.

It’s Unfair to Certain Types of Learners

In addition to being unfair to low-income students, standardized tests often misrepresent the academic abilities of English Language Learner (ELL) students and students with special needs . Although testing accommodations exist, these tests are still designed with a particular student in mind. Opponents of standardized tests argue that anyone who deviates from that ideal, for whatever reason, is automatically at a disadvantage.

The SAT and ACT Don’t Predict Future Success

Ideally, a standardized test would evaluate not just what a student knows already, but also his or her learning potential. After all, colleges that use the SAT and ACT do so because they want to admit students who will succeed on their campuses. But opponents of these tests point to research that suggests that, in fact, the SAT and ACT are poor predictors of student success at the undergraduate level.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, students and families don’t always have much of a say in what standardized tests they do or don’t have to take. That decision is generally up to schools, school districts, college admissions offices, and graduate and professional programs. No matter where you come down on the arguments for and against standardized testing, there’s a good chance you’re going to have to take a few of them over the course of your education.

Nevertheless, being knowledgeable about the subject can make you a more informed and prepared test-taker. Knowing what the goals of these tests are, as well as their potential downsides, will ultimately be an advantage as you navigate the process. If you are wondering how you can start improving your grades and test scores, or if you’re looking for help designing a test strategy for you, reach out to one of our expert admissions consultants here !

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Essay about Arguing Against Standardized Testing

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the …show more content…

Most standardized test do not measure emotional or mechanical intelligence, actually a lot of educators argue that standardized test do not measure comprehension or actual intelligence but rather memorization. While others may believe that standardized testing just needs a few improvements, others believe that it is impossible to have a test that measures accurately the capability of a diverse student population. Today’s schooling depends heavily on the test scores from standardized test. Standardized testing should not have so much weight put on them because they have a negative impact on effective education, students’ self-concept, and learning styles. Although standardized testing has been a major part of schooling it has also had a negative impact on effective education. Standardized has made a huge impact on public schooling so much that not only does it affect the students but also the teachers. With the teachers now beginning to get raises or having their jobs on the line if their students fail the test, many students have not been getting the fullest education process that they could get. Students may not realize the impact that it has had on the type of teaching style that they receive because they are so used to it. With so many teachers not having a lot of time to teach what is on the test and the other things that they feel are important to students to know, a lot of

Standardized Testing In Schools Essay

• 4 Works Cited

begun their education and the tests that are sure to come with it. The road

Standardized Testing America

While a few standardized tests over a student’s school career can be helpful to make sure students are on track and teachers are educating their students, the United States education system has far too many standardized tests. The U.S should reduce the number of tests given to students each year. The current amount of testing stresses students and forces teachers to “teach to the test”. Standardized testing has not and will not improve the American school

Argumentative Essay On Standardized Testing

Students shouldn’t be measured by what they get on standardized test since it doesn’t show other things that the students are good at. The author wrote, “ Contrary to popular assumptions about standardized testing, the tests do a poor job of measuring student achievement. They fail to measure such important attributes as creativity and critical thinking skills.” (Opposing viewpoints in Context pg.1) The author’s main argument is that standardized tests do not show the other skill that students, schools or programs have that isn’t shown just through a test. That Standardized testing doesn’t effectively measure the achievement of students. In his or her article, the author puts what achievement is but what is based on standardized test and not other things. A lot of attributes are not measured from the standardized tests. There are some places that have rewards for “shallow thinking” (Opposing viewpoints Pg.3)

Many people in the United States are concerned with the role that standardized testing has on education. Most of them have very strong views on this subject and as it usually happens with large-scale issues these views are very diverse and often opposite. Some claim that standardized testing is the best way to determine student’s skills and qualities because they are equally designed for everyone and not biased. Others, on the other hand, argue the fairness of these tests. They believe that test scores do not represent student’s knowledge. What is certain, in my opinion, is that this subject needs more attention followed by actions that will actually make difference in the education system.

Standardized Testing Essay

Currently, standardized tests do not improve the education of students in America. Standardized testing is not an accurate measure of student’s knowledge because they are designed to test an extremely broad amount of students who do not have the same educational background. This makes it incredibly difficult to test students across the world on the same level and expect their scores to reflect their education. Standardized testing, by definition, is any test containing the same questions that is administered to a vast group of people for the purpose of comparing different student’s test scores. This issue is important because it affects the entire academic community, positively and negatively. Therefore, all teachers, students, school staff, and test administrators have some involvement with standardized testing. The vast majority of people in America have taken a standardized test sometime in their life, which makes these tests vital in the

Argument Against Standardized Testing

Through the creation of the No Child Left Behind initiative in 2001, the government started requiring every state to set content standards for each grade level, as well as develop ways to assess student progress with meeting specified standards (Guide,22). The amount of standardized tests in schools have increased, but not everyone shares the belief that they are effective to students’ overall learning. Therefore, the purpose of this research, is to answer some of the toughest questions regarding standardized testing which include, is standardized testing an effective measurement of student ability? As well as, is standardized testing beneficial to students?

Since 1805 public schools have been the backbone of many Americans and their strive for an education. On top of this, public schools, according to the Huffington Post, equate to 91% or 50.7 million of those attending pre-Kindergarten through the 12th grade. But, with other school types such as year-round attending over 2 million students, the question begs, “Which school type provides their students with the best education”?

The Disadvantages of Standardized Testing Essay

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Standardized tests are exams that are supposed to measure a child’s academic knowledge but have long been a controversial subject of discussion. Although it is one method to see how a child is performing, is it the best method? Standardized testing can be biased or unfair, inhibit both the teacher’s and the children’s creativity and flexibility, affect funding for schools, cause untested subjects to be eliminated from the curriculum, and cause anxiety for children and teachers.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 was put into place to provide extra money for children who do not have money while trading their knowledge using their test scores. The NCLB Act says that students are to be given yearly tests along with yearly report cards to track how well they are doing in school, in doing so, school is not about fun and socializing but now it is all business. These tests not only do not help the students learn but puts a load of stress on their shoulders, alongside that the tests have no purpose other than grading how well a students is able to retain information.

Standardized Testing is NOT Effective Essay

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Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.

Tomorrow was the big day. The day that every student despised, but came every year. The problem that transcends national borders: standardized testing. Before I knew it, it was the final week, and time was running out. In my case, the Connecticut state test, the CMT, was in just two days. More than nervousness, there was a cloud of confusion surrounding this test for us students. Some said that preparation and study are necessary for this test, while most thought just the opposite. Some people were even saying that the scores for these tests somehow will affect our progress in school. Looking back, I don’t remember the test being all that hard, but it didn’t make sense to me. How could this one test, filled with questions that require shallow thinking and zero creativity, show the state the performance of my hard-working teachers, or the individuality and strengths of each student? Or on a larger scale, every student in the entire state?

Validity Of Standardized Testing Essay

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.

To begin with standardized testing creates several critical problems for students and for the education industry. These tests are created to test over particular things. In the end these types of tests are only limited in the amount of knowledge that can be tested toward students. For example, “Standardized exams offer few opportunities to display the attributes of high-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity.” (“Standardized Testing Has Serious Limitations”). Even though these tests are able to attack certain subjects at the core, they still leave out very valuable and critical information that all students should know. In

College is right around the corner and senior year will soon be coming to a close. Over the years, I have been exposed to all sorts of standardized tests. Some of these I can prepare for, like the ACT, while others seem to throw some curveballs, like the MAP Assessment. Either way, both tests help measure and determine my ability as a student. No student looks forward to taking exams, but I understand why they are essential for evaluating students. Standardized tests allow colleges and teachers to measure student’s ability as well as push students to study and take things seriously. For this reason, I think the number of them should be maintained.

Is there an efficient and effective way of measuring ability? Throughout history, mankind has strived to find a feasible manner of tracking and comparing, their achievements and achievements in knowledge. Recently, this pursuit has led to the popularized use of standardized tests. However, standardized tests are not an effective way of measuring the knowledge of humanity. Although, if used properly, they can reflect the gathered information, it is not always correct.

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Standardized Testing is Still Failing Students

By: Cindy Long , Senior Writer Published: March 30, 2023

Key Takeaways

• Standardized tests don’t accurately measure student learning and growth.
• Unlike standardized tests, performance-based assessment allows students to choose how they show learning.
• Performance-based assessment is equitable, accurate, and engaging for students and teachers.

Break out your No. 2 pencil and answer this multiple choice question: How do standardized tests measure student learning?

If you didn’t answer “all of the above,” then: A. You haven’t been paying attention, or B. You work for a testing software company.

Most of us know that standardized tests are inaccurate, inequitable, and often ineffective at gauging what students actually know. The good news is, there’s a better way:  Performance-based assessment provides an essential piece of the puzzle in measuring student growth.

What is Performance-Based Assessment (PBA)?

This system of learning and assessment allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skill through critical-thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and the application of knowledge to real-world situations. In other words, it helps students prepare for college, career, and life.

PBA also allows educators to create more engaging instruction and address learning gaps by observing over time. And it helps them gather well-rounded information to better support their students’ success—a far cry from the “drill and kill” of state and federal standardized tests.

PBA can mean asking students to compose a few sentences in an open-ended short response;  develop a thorough analysis in an essay;  conduct a laboratory investigation; curate a portfolio of student work; or complete an original research paper.

Younger students may design experiments, write poems, or create art that demonstrate concepts. 

“PBA allows students more choice in how they can show what hey’ve learned, and it allows differentiated instruction for different learning styles,” says Molly Malinowski, a first-grade teacher at Lynch Elementary School, in the Winchester school district, in Massachusetts. “Standardized tests don’t allow choice because it’s one-size-fits-all. Students may have the knowledge, but may not be able to show what they know and understand on the test. They can demonstrate that in PBA.” 

Built-in Differentiation

One of Malinowski’s favorite math assessments focuses on addition, using numbers from 0 through 20. She introduces the concept and, with inquiry-based instruction, presents lessons and talks about strategies. As students pose questions or problems, the process ignites their curiosity. At the end of the unit, they have an “addition celebration.”

She starts by building fluency and then asks students to share their problem-solving strategies with the class.

“The best part is that they get to show their learning in a lot of different ways,” Malinowski says. “For this math standard, they make a video, a poster, a voice recording, a mini-play, or a piece of writing. Students have a voice in how they demonstrate their learning.” 

PBA allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skill through critical-thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and the application of knowledge to real-world situations. In other words, it helps students prepare for college, career, and life.

And when they share with the class, that helps reinforces everyone’s learning, she explains. None of this is possible in an individual test.

“With this kind of instruction and assessment, we can … offer targeted support,” she says. “Some students will want to create their own piece of work, while others need more scaffolding, so I can really see who is learning what.”

Each academic area in her school, from math to language arts to science and social studies, has a PBA.

“We’ve been encouraged to take time to develop PBAs for our grade level, developing and tweaking them, and trying them out and making edits as we go,” she adds. 

Sequences, Not Snapshots

Malinowski teaches in one of eight public school districts participating in the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA).

MCIEA is a partnership between these school districts and their local teachers unions, who are working together to create a fair and effective accountability system, offering a more dynamic picture of student quality and learning than a single standardized test. 

“The first objective of MCIEA is to measure  student learning in a way that relies on teacher-created, classroom-embedded, performance assessments rather than externally created standardized assessments,” says MCIEA co-founder Jack  Schneider. “The second objective is to measure school quality in a way that is more holistic, valid, and democratic than standardized tests.”

The consortium’s framework goes beyond test scores and graduation and absentee rates, instead focusing on multiple measures of student engagement and achievement, as well as school environment.

“It’s a more equitable system that doesn’t punish marginalized students,” Schneider explains.

The current data used to measure student success, adds Schneider, closely correlates to race, income, and family educational attainment. It really only tells us about advantage and disadvantage outside school, not what schools are actually doing.

“We want to capture all of the things that show student learning and achievement, not just this tortuously narrow vision that is embedded in the current system,” he says. 

“Where in the data is student engagement, their sense of belonging, performing arts, or development of civic competencies?” he asks. “There are massive gaps. So many of the current variables are just demographics in disguise.”

On a standardized test, there is only one right answer. Every other answer is wrong. But educators know when students are engaged in authentic and meaningful tasks, they can arrive at answers that are not entirely wrong or entirely right.

“We’d never give someone a standardized test to see if they can fly an airplane,” Schneider says. “PBA can show us much more effectively what a student knows that actually reflects the complexity of knowing and doing something.”

Leveling the Playing the Field

Alissa Holland is an instructional coach in the Milford Public Schools district, in Massachusetts, one of the districts participating in the MCIEA.

“Standardized tests create test anxiety and some kids even have test phobia because they have just this one chance at getting it right,” says Holland, who works at Stacy Middle School. “PBA allows students to ask more questions and bounce ideas around, which reduces anxiety without reducing rigor."

PBA also removes bias and creates more equity. For example, Holland recalls a state standardized test question about decomposition for eighth-grade science: “The question asked about grass clippings after mowing the lawn, and students got hung up on ‘grass clippings,’” she says. “Some had no idea what they were because they either lived in apartments and had no lawns, or they had lawns but didn’t mow them because they had landscapers.”

A PBA on decomposition, on the other hand, would allow students to show their learning by demonstrating it with something they’re familiar with—grass clippings, an apple core, or leaves in the park—in a diagram, an essay or poem, or  artwork. Students can show much more of their knowledge over time, in a form they choose, rather than on one day, on one test question, where only one answer is right, Holland explains.

“Working on a PBA shows growth while inspiring a growth mindset,” Holland says.

Her colleague Dan Cote, a social studies teacher in the same district, agrees. Nobody likes to regurgitate everything they know on a single test,  he says.

“The PBA process acknowledges that learning happens in different stages, where we can give feedback and build skills during the assessment,” Cote says. “It also increases engagement because students walk in the shoes of a geographer or historian, with tasks that mimic real world activities.”  

Stronger Relationships with Students

Standards and rubrics don’t always call for collaboration, and there’s certainly no teamwork on a test, but in PBA, students often work in  groups that build critical social skills.

When Cote’s students learn about earlier civilizations, they form teams of four and decide together what time period and landscape their civilization would inhabit. 

“They have tough decisions to make and problems to solve, like laws for farmers, how to respond to a natural disaster, what they should invest in as a civilization,” Cote explains. 

“Then each student writes their version of what happened, like a historian would—which demonstrates how easily bias occurs when the students read the other students’ varying versions of the same events.”

Then the students create artifacts from their civilizations, and their classmates try to guess which civilization each student inhabited.

At the end of every PBA, Cote debriefs with the class.

“Students always say that working together was the best part,” he says.  That’s the best part for the teachers, too, because it helps them build stronger relationships with students. 

“We gain so much more when we can hear their thoughts,” Cote says. “It’s not about a gotcha on a test score.” 

Reference s

• 1 Arts Education During COVID: The Show Must Go On!
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• 3 Election 2024: Education on the Ballot
• 1 NEA LGBTQ+ Resources
• 2 Rethinking Grading with Agency and Equity
• 3 Phenomena-Centered Science in your Classroom

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Standardized Testing Debate

Show More Education Debate Essay Standardized testing is a major focal point in modern education systems all over the world. The purpose of the tests is to measure the student’s and teacher’s abilities, and compare them to other students from around the city, country, and world on an academic level. The comparisons are supposedly one of the many “benefits” that come with frequent and relentless standardized testing. However, these standardized tests have no benefits whatsoever; only detrimental effects on the mental and physical health of both students and educators, as well as the undermining bias directed towards the different racial and cultural groups, the minorities of the population, and the educators preparing the students for the tests. Standardized …show more content… Standardized testing, although this was not its original purpose, became a way for school boards to measure the success rates of students at those schools and the teachers’ ability to teach the required material. This process became known as the “ test and punish” approach, and can lead to an indirect bias towards teachers. If, for example, a teacher has a poor reputation among students at a school, students could purposely score lower on that particular section of a standardized test simply in attempt to get rid of or punish the disliked teacher. In fact, 220,000 students from Massachusetts high schools were required to take a standardized test in April 2000, however 200 formed staged protests encouraging students to “take a zero” on the test to skew results and initially get the testing removed from the education system. How can purposefully skewed results and several clear forms of bias towards several groups be an accurate indicator of academic achievement among a population? Ron Maggiano, a retired professor after a 33-year career, explains that the students are being taught to simply take a test. The computer grading system cannot accurately measure a student’s ability to think critically of a subject, if at all. The standardized testing system is clearly flawed, as evident among the several forms of bias effecting everyone involved, directly or not, and is one of the …show more content… This would consequently take away from social times, as well as affecting social and academic well being. Students can only study and take in so much knowledge before they need a break, and without recess, how can anyone be sure how much of the material they are being taught is actually being retained.Testing also eats up much of a students free time, as they spend several hours a night preparing. This time spent studying and preparing could be partially used on extra-curricular activities, hobbies, exercising or doing social activities such as volunteering. Activities such as this will benefit the student physically, emotionally and socially, and can help contribute to healthier and happier students. Unhappy and unhealthy students cannot perform well in an instructional classroom environment, let alone in a stress inducing testing situation. In summary, standardized tests can torment students on emotional, physical and social levels that can harm their outlook towards education, and life in general. This is yet another of the several reasons why standardized testing needs to be excluded from the curriculum in modern

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The Daily Texan

The necessity of standardized testing in higher education.

Standardized testing can rear its head quickly at the peak of graduate school application season, especially for upperclassmen. The necessity of these exams for assessing academic readiness is widely understood, yet tests like the MCAT, LSAT and GMAT are all acronyms synonymous with struggle and despair. 

Although many struggle with finding where to start and the general studying process, the exams are only becoming increasingly important as students are required to prove their academic skills to admissions committees in a controlled and proctored environment. 

Artificial intelligence has taken over many academic spheres, including writing, coding and mathematics, limiting a student’s opportunity to learn and master these critical subjects. Standardized exams remove the aids and the technology and put your genuine abilities and recall to the test. 

Neuroscience junior Maggie Zhang discusses her experience studying for the MCAT and how she found the exam helped not only facilitate students technically but also in the emotional sense as well. 

“It’s not just reading a passage and answering questions, but it’s also drawing conclusions and being able to read the bigger picture,” said Zhang when asked about the reading comprehension section. 

The ability to comprehend reading texts ties in with one’s emotional intelligence . The Critical Analysis and Reading Skills (CARS) section of the MCAT or the reading comprehension section of the LSAT can help assess your ability to grasp complex thoughts and test your communication skills. 

Universities attempt to review students holistically with essays, interviews, GPAs and resumes, but students all come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, and this is where a standard comparison device becomes helpful — especially one without any outside influence.

“ Students should not hesitate to contact graduate program administrators to learn more about the role of standardized tests in admissions and to learn how to make their graduate applications as competitive as possible,” says Shannon Neuse, director of the office of undergraduate admissions. 

Graduate programs have different prerequisites and examinations, so understanding what is required of you beforehand is an important first step. Each entrance exam is different but generally intends to equip you for future lecture content, class exams and industry roles.  

Government junior Lauren Mays is preparing for law school with the LSAT this semester. 

“The standardized test, everybody goes in, and it’s a level playing field, everyone’s taking the same test,” said Mays. 

Leveling the field helps students who don’t perform well in the classroom setting or cannot commit to extracurriculars because of work or family matters. Individuals are offered an opportunity to prove themselves based on simply their own knowledge and mastery of a particular field. 

For many, standardized testing resources seem inaccessible, but there are free materials to use while studying for these exams, including Khan Academy, resale textbooks and study groups within UT. These resources are particularly beneficial for those working within a budget. Although the exam is just a part of the process, succeeding outside of just receiving the certificate is increasingly important, especially as more and more people are receiving higher education. 

Anika Hesse, a business and biology major who is taking the MCAT, is working as a medical scribe for an allergist and immunologist. She finds there to be a unique overlap between her learning and her job. 

“I think reinforcing the things that I read about or have watched in a video, seen in practice, was helpful,” Hesse said. 

Graduate school examinations and the preparation for these exams prove to be a way to succeed in further education and beyond. 

Shenoy is an economics and English sophomore from Houston, Texas.

Home — Essay Samples — Education — Standardized Testing — The Reasons Why Standardized Testing Should Be Abolished

The Reasons Why Standardized Testing Should Be Abolished

• Categories: American Education System Education System Standardized Testing

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Words: 1092 |

Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 1092 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Bibliography

• Grade Power Learning. (2017, June 22). PROS & CONS OF STANDARDIZED TESTS. Retrieved from Grade Power Learning: https://gradepowerlearning.com/pros-cons-standardized-tests/
• National Council of Teachers of English. (2014). How Standardized Tests Shape—and Limit—Student Learning. Retrieved from National Council of Teachers of English: https://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CC/0242-nov2014/CC0242PolicyStandardized.pdf
• Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. (2019). What's Your Learning Style? The Learning Styles. Retrieved from Education Planner: http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-styles.shtml
• Simpson, C. (2016, May). Effects of Standardized Testing. Retrieved from Harvard: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/eap/files/c._simpson_effects_of_testing_on_well_being_5_16.pdf

Why standardized tests shouldn’t be a way to measure knowledge?

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