Benefits of Standardized Testing for Students and Teachers

Standardized testing is a very commonly used method of evaluating students with the same test to draw comparable data. It has been used for decades, but only recently did it start picking up speed. America first began standardization to keep up with our rapid-paced society. According to Bruce Dixon, an educational innovator and motivational speaker from Albany, schools across the nation were forced to figure out an efficient method to measure student academic ability (Dixon 49). The easiest option was to administer identical tests to every student and have them all graded equally. They are used to group students according to intellectual ability, therefore identifying students with disabilities. A professor of international education and entrepreneurship at University of the Incarnate Word in Texas, Osman zturgut, found that his practice originates from China 605 BC, where individuals' test scores dictated which government job you were to dedicate the rest of your life to (?–zturgut 1-3).

Today, test scores are made a priority in most schools and are heavily emphasised as the most important and crucial part of the academic school year for students in all grades. The school districts then use the gathered exam scores and publicize their results, says Anya Kamenetz, an American writer who attended Yale University and owns a blog regarding education (Kamenetz 47-48). These results are then in turn used to deem which school is the best to send new children to. However, these particular students will face many challenges once they are there. Standardized testing is a current issue growing more popular throughout the United States over the last decade. The nation is divided over the question of whether or not uniform exams accurately measure academic ability. All students, regardless of race, ability, gender, or age, in all schools should be better represented than with a numerical test grade. Although some claim standardized testing is the only method to measure the intellectuality of the American children, the benchmark is unclear and unmanageable for most of our country's students. Standardized testing should not be used to measure the abilities of children for its inaccuracy and negligence of other redeeming qualities of young scholars.

Testing using standardization creates an unequal playing field and in no way shows all the qualities that students should actually be judged on. It has a dramatic effect on both the students and teachers. One elementary school teacher in Maryland found that her higher-level students were getting scores on exams that were below the standard. Not only were the students devastated, but the parents were as well. Confusion ensued as they had never been told that their child was performing below the standard before. This revealed that no one ever truly knew how they were doing academically. Standardized tests are the only true way to expose where you are in relation to your classmates. An accumulating amount of parents began to protest standardized testing for it's deceitfulness and unmanageability. This problem is a result of the benchmark being set by a specific group that doesn't accurately represent the actual test takers.

The students that set the standard for the rest of America are privileged, undiverse children. Washington DC's system to evaluate their kids, the Comprehensive Assessment System, is like checking if a window is open by throwing a stone at it, according to a third grade teacher Lelac Almagor (Almagor 6-7). In no way does it do enough to genuinely analyze a child's cognitive abilities. Dixon goes as far as describing standardized testing as a form of tyranny. Those involved in any school district should question where this average comes from. Just memorizing facts for the sole purpose of a single test, then forgetting them immediately afterwards, does nothing for the intellectuality of children. Nevertheless, this is what they are forced to do if they want to reach that average (Dixon 49). However, that is the ideology of standardized testing. Results from the exams do not evaluate the quality of teaching. Alfie Kohn, an American author, expert in human behavior, a Brown University graduate, and advocate of progressive learning, has found that educators cannot learn from their students' scores to refine their lesson plans because they offer no insight as to what works and what does not.

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