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How important are standardized tests? Should these tests be able to hold a child back in school? These are questions being asked by parents and teachers everyday in school. Standardized test scores may not only affect a child, but his or her school as well. These tests seem to be very important to some people, while others feel they should not be used. Standardized tests are tests given to students by a teacher or other adult figure. The tests are scored in a predetermined way and then those scores are compared with others. There are mainly two types of standardized tests, and they are: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Aptitude tests are tests that predict how well a student will do in a later educational setting. An example of this is the ACT’s. This test tries to predict how well a student will do in college. An achievement test is a test given to students at various ages. School board members to rate a school or compare it to another school use this test. There are five of these tests and they are: California Achievement Test, Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Metropolitan Achievement Test, and Stanford Achievement Tests (Popham). Standardized tests have one basic format. The students are asked to answer questions quickly and efficiently. All of the questions have only one right answer. Most of the questions are in multiple-choice format (“Fairtest”). Most of the tests require students to fill in circles on a separate answer sheet. The tests are usually timed. Standardized tests are used as assessment tools. These tests try to assess the knowledge and skills of a student in a certain subject area. These assessment scores are then compared to the rest of the nations scores. These test scores are considered very important to both teachers and parents (Popham). I do not feel that standardized tests should be as important as they are in schools. One reason is because these tests are not the only way to assess how well a child is doing in school (Osburn). Teachers need to use observation and other tools to assess children. Another reason is that I do not feel these tests are accurate. If a student is from a higher socioeconomic status they are more likely to do good on the tests. These students may have better education or better assessment tools to practice with. Several students may have English as their second language and this could really hurt their test scores. It is not fair for a child who does not speak English well to be compared to English speaking students (“Concerns”). I do not feel it is right for a school to have to cut down on arts, recess, electives, and other activities so they can afford these tests. These tests do not test a child’s creativity, motivation, or talent. A student that may score low on standardized tests may have a lower self-esteem than a high scoring student. These tests can upset children and make them feel stupid or think they are behind in school (Hyman). Standardized tests are used to judge schools, and I feel this is wrong. A teacher may begin to “teach to the test” and ignore other important subjects or ideas. These tests do not allow teachers to teach in various ways that may be best for the students (Hyman). I do not think that standardized tests are reliable. According to the article “Fairtest: What’s Wrong with Standardized Tests?” a reliable test is one that a student can take twice and get the same results. I do not feel these tests are reliable because a student’s scores vary from day to day. Some students test better on certain days and worse on other days. Most standardized tests are multiple-choice and do not test writing or use of math. Several students may just fill in circles because they do not want to think about the answers or work them out (“Fairtest”). I feel that some students are just plain better test takers than other students. This is not fair for the bad test takers because they may be looked at as not being as smart as the good test takers. There are several arguments that people use to say that standardized tests need to be used. Several people say they are important because they have comparable results. School board members think they are an effective way to rate a school and its progress. I feel this is incomplete assessment of a school because it does not view the other aspects of the school. For example, how does the school work with children emotionally, creatively, physically, etc? Some people also feel that these tests are a good way to compare a student’s performance level with other students around the world. I think this is incorrect because of the difference in the students. A child who has English as their second language will probably not score as high as an English speaking child, but this does not mean the ESL student is not as smart as the English speaking student. These are some reasons why people feel standardized tests are important and why I feel they are not. I think that there are several things that can be done with these standardized tests. First, I do not think they should be weighed so heavily in schools. I think that schools can use the tests to recognize their weaknesses, but should not use them to judge students. Schools should definitely not hold back a child because they do badly on standardized tests. If a child scores poorly on the test, the teacher should assess and work with the child in other ways. A teacher needs to have other assessments and notes on each child. I also feel that the school board should not depend on these scores so much. The school board can use these scores as well as other observations to rate a school. I think that the school needs to be looked in other ways, like creativity and emotional development. Overall, I feel that these tests are judging students and school administration too heavily. I think that the schools can continue using these tests but must also consider other assessment tools. I feel that schools, teachers, and parents need to use these scores to help identify a student’s certain weaknesses, but should not use them as the main assessment of the student. |
