Persuasive Essay On High Stakes Testing

High-Stakes testing is something that Joel Spring highlights early on in Chapter 3 of American Education. He cites most of the facts behind why and how these tests are distributed throughout schools across the United States (Spring 63). However, the problem with these tests is that they don’t accurately reveal what students may actually know. Often times these tests are given just as the title implies in high stake situations. Whether it be for college entrance or elementary grade promotion I feel these test results can be misleading due to the situation they are being taken in. The fact is, most students fail to perform well under pressure, thus leading to the hindered test scores. I would agree that to some extent we need to test all student’s
knowledge, however, I think it could be in a lot less formal fashion. This can be done by still using these same tests, but taking some of the implications away from them. What this does is allow kids to comfortably sit down and show you what they know and at the end of the day it won’t affect what college or university they are accepted into or even the funding that their school gets. I can first hand tell you that I have always struggled with high-stakes testing, but have always been a very strong student as far as my production in the classroom. What this does is exemplify how misleading test scores can be. With that being said, I would propose that as a national government we take off the implications of these tests so that we can find out what these students really know. At the same time it offers children and young adults a chance to be themselves and work for what they want without the looming pressure of high-stakes testing.