Standardized Testing: Improving Education

My heart is racing and my palms are dripping in sweat. My stress levels are through the roof, and my mind can barely focus. The answers which I record could decide my entire future. My college choices or even whether I graduate high school are all riding on passing some test that a random company made. All of this in the name of furthering education, but is any of it really working to help improve education as a whole? With costs mounting year after year is there any other place in education that would help further a student’s learning experience that all these funds can go into. With all the wasted time of standardized tests kids could actually being doing something productive, and making connections with the real world. Standardized tests
With only three or four subjects being pushed through the tests many other subject areas are being “put on the back burner”. According to late education researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include “creativity, critical thinking, resilience, perseverance, self-discipline, leadership, honesty, and integrity” just to name a few(www.washingtonpost.com). A national 2007 study by the Center on Education Policy reported that since 2001, 44% of school districts had reduced the time spent on science, social studies, and art by an average of 145 minutes per week in order to focus on reading and math(www.nea.org). With all these cuts backs to time spent in other classes not deemed important it seems to be leaving a more desirable group of students, skill set, or interest in a particular subject . Like those that are good at math, science, and english are more valuable than those who are into the music and art programs. These are the students who are getting swept under the
That without them you would not have measurable data to assess comprehension and or lack of knowledge in a subject. Many argue that standardized tests don’t narrow the curriculum, but they highlight the important basic skills which students should master. A 2013 Associated Press Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 75% of parents say standardized tests “are a solid measure of their children’s abilities”, and 69% say the tests “are a good measure of the school's’ quality”(www.apnorc.org). In the 2009 edition of the PISA test China displaced Finland as number one in reading, math, and science(www.nytimes.com). With calls to reduce standardized tests China seems to prove that they are a good thing in boosting learning and education. Chester E. Finn, Chairman of the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, predicts that Chinese cities will top the PISA charts for the next several