Something that every student throughout the United States must endure is the unwillful participation in standardized tests. These standardized tests have been used for several years as measurements of how students are compared with one another or how much of a particular subject they have learned throughout a semester or year. These tests have been used as a way to measure a student's intelligence and true grade level. But is a single test really the correct and fair way to determine what class a student will be taking the next year or even what college he/she is "qualified" to go to? Although the high standards and increased testing are thought to be better for the preparation of students for college, standardized tests are not worth the cost because of the high levels of stress, inaccurate representation of classroom success, and do not prepare students for productive adult lives.
     

Standardized tests have been shown to take productive class time in order to prepare students for these tests. They have also been shown to take away time from science, social studies and arts in order to focus more time on math and reading. It is extremely important for a student to be well rounded in their studies in middle and high school so that they are able to efficiently choose a career that they would want to study in college. When a student is focusing their time on only reading and math they are more likely to begin studying a career which they do not enjoy because of their lack of knowledge and exposure to other subjects.

For example, in elementary school, all students can remember really learning was times table and how to write a paragraph. The only form of social studies was Schoolhouse Rock videos and the amounts of times one can remember holding a paintbrush can be counted on one hand. By the time the standardized test rolled around, there was only one month left of school before true learning began. By the time middle school is here students are left to feel very unprepared and inept to handle the material that was being chucked at them by their new teachers. This new material had almost no light shined upon it in their earlier years of learning and it was most likely because of the intense preparation of the standardized tests.

It is said that standardized tests, because of their high standards, can help students prepare themselves for college. The reasoning behind this is quite simple; the increased amount of tests and the higher standards that need to be met push the student meet those standards. When the student is forced to meet certain requirements it pushes them to do better and see what colleges might expect. It also is said that the increase in standardized testing pushes test makers to keep improving tests adjusting them as needed from year to year. (Procon.org Gerstner 34).
Even though these are valid points being made, students that are being made to take test after test are turning into better test takers but are not being well prepared for their future.  For example, Jiang Xueqin, a Principal of Peking High School in China, says “Chinese schools are very good at preparing their students for standardized tests. For that reason, they fail to prepare them for higher education …” (Procon.org 139). Being drilled on how to effectively choose one out of four possible answers is not preparing students for that 10 page essay or how to effectively work with others in a job setting. It is simply, like mentioned before, preparing those students to become good test takers. Now, not all the things that are taught in school are invaluable but more things of greater value and significance could be absorbed if teachers weren’t worried about if they prepared their students enough for a test or not.

Standardized tests are also an inaccurate representation of not only the student’s intelligence, but an inaccurate representation of the teacher as well. According to a report done by “Annenberg Institute for School Reform”, in Houston, about 17% of teachers were “ranked in the top category for the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills reading test”, but when their students were tested in the same subject but a different test, called the “Stanford Achievement Test”, those same teachers were ranked in the lowest categories (Procon.org 30). How can standardized tests be used to measure a teacher’s performance if the results they receive can vary so greatly from test to test? In fact, according to W. James Popham, “...asserting that low or high test scores are caused by the quality of instruction is illogical.” (4). He says this because he mentions earlier in the text that standardized tests have only one part out of three on what is taught in school. The other parts of the test are what the student learns out of school and what they know on their own. Therefore if we put the whole test score on the teacher it is unfair because only a fraction of the test is actually their responsibility.

Also, since it was the same group of students who tested, how can we be sure they weren’t just having a good day when they took the first test? Or vice versa, how do we know they weren’t having an off day for the second test? The answer is we don’t.

A standardized test is just a snapshot. It is how a certain student performed at a certain time, on a certain day, etc. If the teachers are rewarded or punished by this snapshot that was taken how is that supposed to be an accurate reading? It would be more accurate if the people giving the standardized tests came into the classroom to evaluate the teacher’s methods and the students response to the teacher (good participation, a lot of discussion etc.) and judge a teacher based off of what they see and not off of a piece of paper.

       Anyone can choose A, B, C, or D but that is not a true test of their knowledge and intelligence, but a test for their memory.  This is not a game of memory though, is it? As a student, if I am going to take a test I want to know it will give me an accurate reading and i want to know that my whole future won’t be riding on a single test. Unfortunately, that is not the case and a single test can determine something as big as whether you get into your dream college or not. So my advice? Use those test taking strategies you learned in school.

Sources:
Jiang Xueqin, "The Test Chinese Schools Still Fail,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 8, 2010
Louis V. Gerstner Jr., "The Tests We Know We Need,” New York Times, Mar. 14, 2002
"Membership." Educational Leadership:Using Standards and Assessments:Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2015. .
Public Agenda, "Where's the Backlash? Students Say They Don't Fret Standardized Tests,” www.publicagenda.org, Mar. 5, 2002
Sean P. Corcoran, "Can Teachers be Evaluated by Their Students' Test Scores? Should They Be? The Use of Value-Added Measures of Teacher Effectiveness in Policy and Practice” (676 KB)  , www.annenberginstitute.org, 2010
"Standardized Tests - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2015.
Yong Zhao, "John Richard Schrock: Why Doesn't China Get Off the Teach-to-the-Test System?,” www.zhaolearning.com, Dec. 29, 2010