Standardized Testing Cons

Groggy-eyed on a Saturday morning, a student enters a quiet classroom. Taking their seat, the nerves start to become reality, and it is time for a miracle to happen. Today is the day that high school students are required to take the ACT throughout the country at their high school. This test rates teachers, students, and school districts based upon the results of the test. They are used to determine the intelligence level of each individual, and they are used to mark progress taken away from the classroom. The student shuffles his feet as he is about to throw up, for he would not be here if it wasn’t for this mandated test. For some people, taking a test is their worst nightmare. As for this student, this determines their future and decides
Studies have been done to prove that standardized tests are not beneficial in their given purpose. Standardized test scores do not accurately reflect student knowledge nor effectively represent information gained in high school education.
Standardized tests do not effectively show what students have learned in the classroom. Although many pros and cons were found, the negative effects project that standardized tests are not pushing out the proper information needed to rank a student. Not only do they not improve student achievement, but also, they only measure a small portion of valid educational meaning. The format used to take standardized tests do not provide students with real life situations, which therefore will not prepare students for what is to come later in life.
Standardized tests are misleading in a sense that they are trying to measure the ability of one depending on someone else's effectiveness. If teachers are not following the guidelines of common core and turning the material into real life situations, students cannot be responsible for knowing information they have not been taught. If there were to be a test credible for measuring how well a student performs in school, it would consist of many materials that aren’t currently present. The test provided right now is not an offset of the standard curriculum that schools are required to teach. It is hard to measure how well a student retains information based off one test because the test is not measuring the right information. “Employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon. Tablespoons have a different measurement mission than indicating how hot or cold something is. Standardized achievement tests have a different measurement mission than indicating how good or bad a school is. Standardized achievement tests should be used to make the comparative interpretations that they were intended to provide. They should not be used to judge educational quality (Popham 18).” This is important because it shows that standardized tests are not testing over the correct materials to rate a student on their education. This proves that there is a false evaluation