The Ineffectiveness Of Standardized Testing In Schools

Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This applies to standardized testing, something every student faces today. Students are classified as either intelligent or challenged on the basis of their scores. Teachers and schools are also evaluated on the measurement of test scores. Standardized tests fail to reach their goals and are ineffective in determining the true ability of students and teachers.
Standardized testing was first implemented to identify underprivileged students with, “academic superiority,” so that they might gain access to elite colleges (Finneran). Harvard University president James B. Conant utilized
Another purpose of standardized testing was to gain a better understanding of how well students were learning and what might be done to enhance their education, as well as to determine their college readiness.
In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed under President Bush, changing the way standardized testing is used. NCLB’s purpose was to ensure that minority students were being educated on an equal level as all other students and to raise educational standards, because forty-two percent of students entering college required remediation in reading, writing, and math (Shanahan). Accountability was placed on the schools, determining effectiveness based on the scores of minority students. Penalties such as reduction of funding and firing of teachers were meted out to schools with lower scores. In 2009, the National Governors Association began to develop the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which would dictate the curriculum for grades K-12 to ensure future success in the, “ever-changing job market and the global economy” (Burks, et al). This
Alfie Kohn says that studies have shown a, “statistical association between students with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking.” Elementary school students were classified as being, “actively engaged,” if they engaged in texts and asked questions as they read and tried to make connections with new material (Harris, et al). Standardized testing teaches students to read without drawing on prior knowledge, rather than make sense of the text by combining what they are reading with what they already know, which is a student’s natural inclination (Eppley). The assumption is that when students score high on standardized tests, they are smarter, but a study published in the journal Intelligence states that students are merely becoming better at taking standardized assessments, rather than increasing their knowledge base (Olson). High test scores are not indicators of actual school performance. Standardized testing fails to measure student ability because students’ brains are being trained to take the tests rather than improving their overall