Informative Essay: The Use Of Standardized Testing In Our Schools

Texas alone spends nearly 88 million dollars a year on standardized testing(Martinez), and Florida has a $245 million dollar contract with NCS Pearson to administer their Comprehensive test(Vu). Nearly half “of all the school districts in the United states have reduced their time spent on science, the arts, and social studies” by close to 150 minutes a week in favour of the topics more heavily tested on standardized tests, like reading and math(Ravitch). Standardized testing is not a new topic when it comes to controversy, especially nowadays. In the last ten years Finland has repeatedly scored the highest on the Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA), even though they have “no external standardized tests to gauge students,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University researcher. These tests that are supposed to be helping measure our student’s and teacher’s performances are not only inaccurate, but extremely expensive and time consuming. Most Americans agree that standardized tests are just slowly tearing apart the American education system, thanks to No Child Left Behind(NCLB). Regardless of whether or not Americans think
Since NCLB in 2002 saw a large rise in the use of standardized testing America’s PISA ranking actually fell from 18th in math to 31st, science and reading also fell similarly(Walker). Sadly America is raising a very unintelligent generation, who is so worried about learning how to take tests well that they forget to actually learn. We can’t really trust these large testing companies to gauge our education system’s effectiveness when they themselves have repeatedly had major issues with faulty scores on tests. Legislators from across the country should come together to not only save our country money, but to protect this country’s future, the next generation’s