Alanah Bullock
Mrs.Stevenson
Written Communications II
Hampton University
October 21, 2018
Argumentative Essay
Standardized testing has been a part of American education since the 1800s, but the widespread reliance on standardized testing is largely a 20th-century phenomenon. For instance, the College Entrance Examination Board was established in 1902, the first examinations were administered around the country in nine subjects. This test was implemented with the idea of creating standardized admissions for the United States in northeastern elite universities. Standardized testing is an extremely common way of determining a student’s past academic achievement and future achievement. However, high-stakes tests can cause anxiety. When teachers or schools are rewarded for better performance on tests, teachers to are more encouraged to “teach the test”, instead of providing a rich and broad curriculum. Because of classrooms just teaching the test are beginning to lose the meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals, results of high stakes testing which can be affected by the minutest details, are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency; a better alternative would be by performance based assessments. A high-stakes test is a test with important consequences for the test taker. Passing a high-stakes test gives the achiever important benefits such as getting accepted into an accredited college or university. Failing will only hurt you. High-stakes exams have taken its toll on education through entrance exams as they do not properly represent a student’s passion or potential skill but rather shows a limited glimpse of knowledge. America's educational standards are slipping through the seams. Results of these high stakes exams can be easily affected by the tiniest mistakes. These exams are not a credible source to judge a student's overall intelligence and competency. Testers are being forced to fit themselves into a "one test fits all" category. Most of us know from attempting to fit "one size fits all" clothing, that sometimes, it really cannot fit all. Even though some studies show that taking standardized tests may give students a better idea of their own academic strength and weaknesses, they are not reliable nor valid. Instead of testing to ensure that students have properly processed the information received and are applying it rather than simply using memorization skills. Educators are experiencing almost ferocious amounts of pressure to show their effectiveness, and standardized testing is not on the list of ways to do so.
Unfortunately, the main indicator by which most communities judge a school staff's success is students performance on standardized achievement tests. On the contrary, Standardized tests do not measure educational quality. Nowadays, people will associate a school that has high standardized test scores with being a "top notch" school. However; these tests are merely deceptive when it co...
