Benefits Of Standardized Testing In Schools

Standardized testing has been a controversial topic for many years due to a multitude of reasons. Created by man named Frederick J. Kelly in 1914, multiple-choice standardized testing was designed as “the sole metric for assessing what kids were learning in school, how well teachers were teaching them, and whether schools were or were not failing” (Davidson 2012). However, even the ‘Father’ of multiple-choice testing was starting to doubt the efficiency of it all. Kelly stated “College [practices] have shifted the responsibility from the student to the teacher, the emphasis from learning to teaching, with the result that the development of fundamental strengths of purpose or of lasting habits of study is rare,” (qtd. In Davidson 2012).
Originally meant for evaluating a child’s progress and working to close the achievement gap between students, what the testing results mean has changed. Rather than focusing on the students, the tests are used in order to discover how well each educator is doing with teaching the material as well as rank the schools based on how well their scores are. Standardized testing prevents teachers from being able to be to maximize their creativity within the curriculum and make what the students are learning easier to understand. Recently, the “federal, state, and local education-policy circles has been to require more and more standardized exams as a way to establish common benchmarks of achievement and to hold schools accountable for their students' progress.” (Edwards, 28) However with the increase in testing, another issue made itself known. Proficiency and mastery of a subject varies per state. Because each state sets their own standards and guidelines in education, some “made the standardized tests so easy or set passing scores so low that virtually all students were rated proficient even as they scored much lower on federal exams and showed up for college requiring remedial help.” (Rich) Therefore, leading to the creation of the Common Core exams. Meant to address this proficiency inconsistency and set a specific level for success, the Common Core exams are known for its wide variety of
Sometimes it leads them to taking “risks they never once considered.” (Erskine) More and more districts, schools, and teachers have resorted to helping their students on their tests because their “one-time assessments to determine teacher effectiveness.” (Erskine) Many districts were changing the mandated testing in order to secure funding for their schools. In NCLB, it stated that schools that do not have high enough scores could lose their funding or be forced close their doors. The ‘No Child Left Behind’ act was meant to better student abilities and help them, when in all actuality it has worsened their aptitudes when it comes to retaining information as the stress of doing well increased. This led the Obama administration to change their stance on standardized testing. Wanting to lessen testing but keep the rigor of the content, the administration “called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests” (Zernike). Believing that children would still need to take some type of exam in order to gage their understanding, secretary of