Standardized Test: Truth Behind the Scantron Tyler Brown
Today, standardized testing is a major topic around the nation, and more and more people are finding problems with high-risk testing, and many people are trying to find other alternatives. The standard education tries to test all students the same even though not all students learn the same. This has become the standard way of teaching in America, after the No Child Left Behind act. There are different ways students can be evaluated and give them more opportunities to prove themselves. American school systems should test less and educate more.
Since the fate of a teacher's job rest on how well their class does on these test, many teachers end up teaching the test instead of other important information that children need. This results into a lot of information that students miss out on that could broaden their education. Therefore, when students graduate college the only thing they know how to do is to take test. Since many teachers are stressed over losing their jobs, this causes some of them to be less focused or hinders their performance in the classroom. When the teacher can not focus, it is more likely that the students will be less focused.
Standardized test examines only a few parts of a child's progress, and can determine a child's fate without evaluating their full potential. These test can be compared to a microscope, because they focus in on a limited portion of a child's progress in school. Standardized test only show a students test taking ability, and not the information they have learned. Many students suffer from test anxiety which causes many students to do poorly. This much stress on a child normally results in a low grade or even failure.
There is no way to eliminate testing all together but teachers should evaluate their students in different ways so that the students don't have only one chance to prove themselves to their teachers. Teachers should do different evaluations throughout the year, like performance evaluations, which the student has to show what they have learned. These evaluations would challenge the student to be creative to come up with an acceptable way to show their progress. A great deal of children today lack creativity and the school system today does not help that, but performance evaluations would help many students develop a creative mind.