What Are The Benefits Of Standardized Testing In Schools

Standardized testing has always been a factor in our schools. Schools have continually taught it for more than fifty years. Amy Witherbee is content on her opinion that standardized tests are important, not for the testing, but for the standards(Witherbee). In 1983, studies are shown that the U.S. has found studies to show how disastrous the United States education system is(Witherbee). Over the next few years the U.S. tries to find ways to make this better. “Kids in school are not doing the basics,”Witherbee states(Witherbee). She does not like how the schools these days are doing there job. She has looked into what schools have been teaching. A study came out and said that, “Only 31 percent of high school graduates had completed intermediate
algebra, 16 percent had completed Geometry and only 6 percent were able to complete basic calculus classes”(Witherbee). Urban schools had some of the biggest problems(Witherbee). These schools were underfunded for the first part. They had there textbooks budgets at half the cost in two decades. The stairs add up, thus they could not fund better qualified teachers with more experience in academic subjects. Noting these severe shortages on teachers, particularly in the areas of mathematics and physics, the Commission found that “half of the newly employed mathematics, science, and english teachers are not qualified to teach these subjects”(Witherbee). Witherbee says that these shifts either brought on by economic trends or educational philosophies, are easy evidence of how the American student is dumbing down(Witherbee).
With the rapid growth of technology, media, and lifestyle during the past fifty years “we cant be surprised that the most recent generation is absorbing different kinds of information and learning different skills from the world around them”(Witherbee). She goes on saying how “kids may well be more conversant in DNA science and the abstracts of Internet technology. One of the major things she says is that Standerdized tests are not a problem because of the pressure they place on kids, but “how they reveal the discrepancies between what we think kids should learn and what we teach”(Witherbee). The author goes on to talk about how to make testing better and education better overall. Witherbee says that, “we need to come together was a community so that we can negotiate some clear ideas for what skills students need to learn from us and what type of information w expect them to know”(Witherbee). She then keeps talking about our future generation. She states, “Everyone of us is accountable for the next generation”(Witherbee). Thus her main ideas are that no one can do it by themselves. The fact that the author keeps on talking about how it all benefits our community and environment, show how the little things like this can change the way a civilization is brought up or made. By keeping communities stronger,
the world starts to form into one that is more ordered than it already is. The different roles people play also helps. If one person is not doing there share of the work or is slacking at what they have been given to do, then there will be no free civilization for people to live in. Overall, Witherbee talks about how standardized tests, even though they make children “suffer”, build. Strong community, which in turn helps people to now who they are and what their role is”(Witherbee).