Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

Stop Standardized Testing Do you think standardized testing is helpful or harmful? In my opinion standardized testing is harmful. Even though I think it is harmful other people might think that standardized testing is helpful. Standardized testing is harmful because it stresses kids out to much, an obsession with testing robs children of their childhoods, and standardized testing doesn’t improve student achievement. First of why standardized testing is harmful is because it stresses kids out too much. An education researcher, Gregory J. Cizek said “Testing produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both”. The kids get sick because of ho much anxiety they have. On March 14 2002, the Scramento Bee reported that “ Test-related jitters, especially among young students, are so common that the Stanford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do with a test booklet incase a student vomits on it”. In summation standardized testing is harmful because it stresses kids out too much. Second reason why standardized testing is harmful is because it robs children of their childhoods. The time for children to play has almost vanished and the children are focusing to much on the tests. Kids think too much of tests and have no other
time to do anything else. THe Gesell Institute of Human Development showed that increased emphasis on testing is making “children feel like failures now as early as Pre K. Children think they are failures if the do bad on the tests. In conclusion standardized testing is harmful because it robs children of their childhoods. Lastly, standardized testing is harmful because it doesn’t improve student achievement.
National Research Council report found no evidence test-based incentive programs are working: "Despite using them for several decades, policymakers and educators do not yet know how to use test-based incentives to consistently generate positive effects on achievement and to improve education”. There is no evidence that testing improves a child’s education. Testing never really helps children’s grades. The grades that children have go down dramatically when they fail a test and sometimes the test never helps. As noted above standardized testing is harmful because it doesn’t improve student
achievement. However, others could states that standardized testing is helpful. Some evidence to support that standardized testing is helpful is that testing isn’t too stressful for students. They could also say that most students believe that standardized testing is fair. But I still believe that the testing is harmful. It is harmful because it stresses kids out and children don’t really have time for anything else besides studying for the test they have to take. Even though there are great reasons why standardized testing is helpful, I still think that it is harmful to children.