What's Wrong With Standardized Testing

Students growing up in America are tested frequently with standardized tests for better or for worse. America values standardized testing because it causes schools to feel pressured to increase the level of education. Americans test from an early age, contrary to other countries. They currently test students abundantly, and often the results are used to measure their academic status. America is very comfortable with its methods of standardized testing despite much criticism (Kohn, 2000). Despite the benefits of standardized tests, for many reasons they are inaccurate in assessing one’s intellectual abilities; therefore, they cannot be used to predict one’s future academic success. Even though the negative aspects of testing outweigh the positive,
It generally compromises on the quality of learning by not encouraging analytical thinking (Sacks, 1999). There is a study that claims that there is “a statistical association between high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking” (Kohn, 2000). In the article, “What’s Wrong With Standardized Tests?” it states that shallow questions “encourages a narrowed curriculum, out dated methods of instruction… [and often results in] retention in grade and tracking.” Psychologists used to believe that students learned through learning different parts of an idea. In reality, learning cannot be broken into parts since people learn through making connections. Standardized Tests fail to test with psychologist’s knowledge of learning
Kohn (2000) says, “The tests do not capture what is referred to be a well-educated person.” There are those that object the multiple-choice questions because they are not a true reflection of what the student knows. In addition, the condition that the student takes the test can change the score. Standardized tests promote shallow thinking, the tests are written by people with biases, and the tests may not be reliable. The tests change the curriculum in schools, so students are not learning other subjects that are equally as important. I agree with Gardner that there are many unique kinds of intelligence that people can have. Through standardized testing, we are ignoring many people that are very intelligent but in different areas than the tests. Most standardized tests follow the theory of Spearman and only test the g factor (general intelligence) of the person while ignoring the s factor (specific intelligence). When people are recognized for their unique intelligence, they gain confidence in their abilities. Therefore, I believe that in order to test intelligence accurately, the standardized testing system must be