Analysis

Standardized Test Controversy  The controversy is whether or not that standardized testing actually helps students or not. I feel that it does not and for many reasons. Every high school is different as well as every teacher is different. True they have certain requirements to meet as a teacher, but they all teach in their own way and often times don’t teach things that are on standardized tests. I can agree with this statement because I made A’s and B’s all through high school and when it came to taking the ISTEP standardized test my sophomore year, I didn’t quite reach the requirements I needed to pass. I was ashamed of myself all of my friends that never make the grades I do were passing on their first try and I had to retake it next year. I then of course had to take it again my junior year, and I passed it. Relieved that I was now able to say I passed the ISTEP test and for what? I didn’t learn anything from it; it basically just allowed me to pass high school. I think it’s stupid that students are judged by things like that when they make the grades in class and don’t score high enough on things not taught in class. I also believe coming from a school that had 7 classes each day that remembering things taught way back when were difficult to remember. Especially when trying to memorize things for other classes that weren’t even on the standardized tests. Generally when you think about it, you believe that you would do well on a test only having English and math on it. Because we’ve been taught it all our life, so we don’t worry about studying or keeping up with it in class. But then again even when we do keep up with it, none of the stuff we learn in class ever show up on a standardized test. We basically understand the general idea of what it’s asking and then have to figure the rest out on our own or make an educated guess. I do believe there should be a better way of testing everyone all equally, because what if someone is sick or unable to attend? Whether they are unable to attend the test or just any day of the normal school hours? They miss things in class and fall even more behind than the average student already taking the test. Not only do they not know how to solve it, but they don’t even know some of the basics. Or they can’t attend the test and what get held back? It’s ridiculous that a standardized test should decide whether someone passes high school or not.  The positive look on standardized testing is that “standardized tests provide decision makers and useful information that no other evaluation method can provide” says Richard P. Phelps. He also says that “People accuse standardized tests of being unfair, biased and discriminatory. Believe it or not, standardized tests are actually designed to promote test fairness”.  But if they were designed to promote fairness why are so many minorities at a disadvantage when taking American standardized tests? What if English is their second language and are already struggling to learn the language let alone memorize enough information to pass a standardized test. If it is said to be the same for all test takers, what about someone that just moved here and can barely speak English let alone read and understand our language. Do they have a copy of the test in their language? Is it explained to them that they understand what is being asked?  However, he does also state that” Standardized tests are not perfect evaluation tools”, so even someone that strongly agrees how important they are also agrees that they are not the best way to do evaluate. Contradiction is at hand here, which makes this such a hard subject to argue.  Although there is someone who agrees with me and his name is Alfie Kohn and he states that “Test scores offer a quick-and-easy—although, as we'll see, by no means accurate—way to chart progress”. He also states “Not everyone realizes that the process of coming to understand ideas in a classroom is not always linear or quantifiable”. Which also brings back my point of not everything teachers teach you in class even appear on a standardized test, so why do we even take them? He also brings a very good point to the table about how student’s feel about the test “ In short, it may be that a good proportion of students either couldn't care less about the tests, on the one hand, or care so much that they choke, on the other”. I agree with this fully, because I cared a lot about the tests worried myself about it and when it came down to it, I didn’t do that well on it that may be one of the reasons I had to retake it. Also like I said before I had friends that didn’t even do well in high school and simply guessed and wrote whatever and were somehow able to pass. How is that even fair? This next bit of information is from a blogging website, and does not give the writer’s full name so this is what she has to say. Margie a middle school English teacher writes “ I once tutored a 5th grader who did not know what a recipe was. If a standardized test was to ask questions directed at a recipe, that child would have been at a huge disadvantage because most fifth grade students know and have had at least some experience dealing with recipes, but she did not. There is just no way to know for certain that every child being tested has a fair amount of knowledge going into the test”. That bit of information is enough to prove that there are going to be similar situations all over the country. There will always be a scenario such as this that will cause these tests to be unfair.  Another author Kundan Pandey says “Because the students spend a lot of time in preparing for standardized tests and therefore, skip the daily routines of playing and exercising”. So not only are the test unfair and inaccurate they also take away students social life. This is also another great piece of information that is very true. I don’t know how people can argue with these bold facts when it’s right there under their noses.

 Not only am I talking about the ISTEP tests I also want to point out the SAT’s and the ACT’s not being fair. Although I only took the ACT’s I believe I can argue the fact that they were not very accurate. I mean I have to be honest, it was quite similar to the ISTEP and I had to take that twice and only had to take the ACT once. I mean you can take that as many times as you want, but on the first try I scored the average score which allowed my access into college, well to some degree. I mean if it took my 2 times to pass something I’ve been taking all my life and it only took one shot for a test to prepare me for college, how is that even accurate? I mean I know people that scored high on the SAT’s and ACT’s and are not doing that well in college, simply because they do put the time into things or they are just struggling.   Along with AP classes in high school that help prepare you for college level courses, towards the end of the year you are subject to take a standardized exam for that AP class. I also took one of these exams which were my AP Biology exam, the entire year I maintained either an A or B and when it came to taking the exam we had not nearly covered the information needed to pass this exam. I was reading questions that were never even touched in class, and some things that weren’t even biology. I was baffled by how much material was on this and how little I knew about everything. The results to these tests were given out in the summer so I had to ask everyone on Facebook how well they did on the test. Not one of my classmates scored a 3 or higher which was the score needed to pass. I think one kid passed the exam out of about 200 kids taking it. Somehow a freshman was able to learn all the material or was very good at guessing. He ended up passing with a 4, when our number 1 student in the whole school only received a 1 on the exam. If that isn’t inaccurate I don’t know what is.  The main things I can observe about standardized tests are that they are extremely inaccurate and serve little to no purpose. I think that standardized tests should be stopped or at least not worth so much, such as deciding whether you pass high school or not. They simply do not provide enough evidence to prove whether a student should pass high school or not. It’s also not worth trying to make it fair for everyone because you’re always going to have a situation that doesn’t fit the fairness of the testing. The cons easily out weigh the pros in this situation, some people just haven’t seen that yet, and probably never will.