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The Negative Effects Of Standardized Testing On Students

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The Negative Effects Of Standardized Testing On Students
According to a study done at Michigan State University, fifty to eighty percent of the material stressed on standardized tests does not receive suitable attention in textbooks. Ever since President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) on January 2, 2002, the United States government has been forcing educators to give their students more and more standardized tests (Klein 1) . The government does not realize how harmful these tests are to students and their educators. Standardized tests are insufficient ways of ranking and placing students and must be banned. “Teaching to the test” drastically narrows down and lowers the curriculum, they put too much stress on students, standardized is an inefficient way of ranking educational quality, and there are multiple more efficient alternatives to standardized tests. The standardized test was first invented by Frederick J. Kelley in the February of 1916. It was used by …show more content…
“Teaching to the test” is when educators give students practice tests or any form of notes that gives students the format and examples of problems on the test and is also known as in-school test prep. In-school test prep takes time away from teaching curricular material to teach the material on standardized tests. The students do not learn as much as they could without the tests, causing them to not be up to their full educational potential. Howard Everson, professor of psychometrics at Fordham University, disclosed, “Many of the large-scale assessments (state tests) are too far removed from curriculum and instruction. They don’t provide enough information back to the classroom” (“What’s so bad about teaching to the test?” 1). The material on standardized tests is not what is taught in the classroom. Also, the results of these tests are not enough information about the students for the educators to tell exactly what the students need to work
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