Standardized Testing
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Even before President BushÆs No Child Left Behind policy increasing accountability for student performance and, thereby teacher and school program performance, swept American schools. High-stakes standardized testing has become a major issue in the educational arena, partly because of demands for improved student achievement and learning outcomes and partly in order to determine whether or not school programs are succeeding. At schools across the country, the new tests are being employed in an effort to capture measures of student achievement and school efficacy. There are benefits of such standardized testing, such as measuring which programs are effective and, subsequently, merit funding or deserve to be modeled. There are also negatives associated with standardized testing, such as their impact on limiting what is taught since many teachers teach to what is being tested and not critical, creative, or analytical thinking and writing. Despite the cons of using standardized tests, the argument herein is that, despite their flaws, standardized tests are useful indicators of student achievement and school efficacy.One of the positives of standardized tests is their ability to be used as measures of student performance and school efficacy. When schools demonstrate significantly improved test scores, they are often eligible for additional funding for what are viewed as successful programs. Schools where test scores do not meet expect
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d for meaningful analysis. Many argue that standardized tests are beneficial, but when they are used as the only criterion to measure performance they provide misleading information. As one critic of the tests argues, ôThe misuse comes when testing is in effect the sole criteria. Testing alone determines promotion. Even the people who make the tests say thatÆs a test misuseö (Abel 2004, 1).
Others argue that standardized tests often marginalize certain segments of the student population in a way that condemns them to even greater failure. This has been particularly true with respect to African Americans and other minorities. Standardized tests are often performed on students early in their academic careers. Steele (2004) maintains that such tests are a poor method of measuring the abilities of African American students, primarily because such groups have traditionally been shortchanged in the American educational system. Steele (2004) argues that to use such early-in-life tests ôconsistently channels African Americans into a lower-grade education that sustains their lower tests scores, alienates many of them from their education, contributes importantly to their high dropout rates and puts their lives on a course of rest
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Approximate Word count = 1239
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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