Disadvantages Of Standardized Testing In The United States

According to Macionis (2012), “race is a socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society define as important” (p. 56). Unfortunately, people in the United States tend to view some racial categories as more intelligent than others based on standardized tests. As a result, such testing may or may not fuel unfair prejudice in high school, college, and at work.
Stuyvesant High School is located in lower Manhattan and is considered one of the best high schools in the country (Chua & Rubenfeld, 2015). The school accepts students solely based on standardized test scores; thus, creating an Asian student body that comprises of seventy-three percent in 2014, even though they only represent thirteen percent of New York City’s
However, Asians do not have an advantage in this test score category. For instance, in July 2012, less than sixty-four percent of first-time Asian Bar examiners in California passed the test to become a licensed attorney, compared to almost seventy-five percent of whites (General Statistics …, 2012). That is, even though Asians outperformed whites in high school and college admissions using standardized tests, whites have the testing advantage to become licensed attorneys.
Overall, standardized testing may or may not fuel unfair prejudice in high school, college, and at work. Nevertheless, psychologist Alfred Binet “warned against efforts to attach greater meaning” to intelligence test results. He felt that an educational test scale is too subjective to measure the ability to perform specific tasks. In other words, standardized testing should not be used to predict the academic or professional career of candidates and should be eliminated to avoid unfair prejudice in assessing