Reflective Essay – Standardized Testing
Robert A. Jackson
Stevenson University
According to Libba Bray,
“Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district
the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are
secondary.” In general, the results of making standardized test so preeminent
in schools has warped the very foundation or student knowledge and learning in
the classroom. As a previous high school student, I can recollect many
standardized tests I have taken such as the SATs and various AP (Advanced
Placement) tests that would further boost my chances at getting into college.
My high school always expressed how performing well on the SATs was imperative
in getting into a great college. They would have after school and weekend SAT
prep courses, etc. However, the question I had always wondered was, if the SAT
is a review of the mathematical, reading, and writing concepts students have
acquired over their many years of education, then why are there additional prep
classes in helping them learn things they should already know? I had the
fortunate grace of not having to take a SAT prep course, and yet still scored
in the top 3% of the nation on all sections. My high school also stressed the
importance of scoring well on the AP exams. In a majority of my classes, the
number one expression was “the importance of getting a 4 or higher on the AP
exam.” The notion of scoring well on the exam was hammered into my brain my
whole senior year of high school; not necessarily bettering myself as a person
and getting closer to my dream career with the knowledge and newly learned
material I had gained in those courses. Therefore, it is difficult to establish
that these standardized tests helped me demonstrate evidence of learning. Since
the score were so highly important, as stressed by my school and teachers, I
memorized terms and concepts for the exam, studied them, aced the exams, and
then just completely forgot about the material over time, until I relearned the
subjects in college. The terrifying thing about this is that I can say that I
am in the top percentile on every standardized test and I was considered a
model student with a very apathetic and nonchalant attitude about learning,
which is what many of the “top-percentiles” can consider themselves as well.
Finding a methodical
approach to providing school funding as well as evaluating the effectiveness
and quality of teachers is what made testing thrive and motivated its
development. In regards to government funding correlated to standardized test
scores, the general trend tends to be, the better the scores, the more provided
funds from the government to those schools/school districts. Funding first
started based on President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, which requires
states to rate schools based on test results in order to receive federal funds.
Then, President Obama’s administration then dangled an additional $4.3 billion
dollars in front of school administrators in a competition called Race to the
Top (Kastenbaum, 2012).
Despite this unpromising
example for the future of standardized testing, there are many aspects as to
why standardized tests are required by schools. These tests serve towards
assisting in college admissions and accurate course placements for students.
They aide in informing decisions about which people should be selected for
entrance to an educational institution and help to determine which courses or
level of a course a student should take, (ETS, 2014). Standardized tests also
provide results as to whether or not an individual is adequately qualified to
receive a license, certification, or an employment opportunity. They verify
whether someone has the necessary knowledge and skills to be a qualified
practitioner or to be given advanced standing in an occupation or profession,
(ETS, 2014). Finally, one of the arguable most important factor in having
standardized tests is the concept of accountability. This means that the test
can hold various levels of the education system responsible for test results
that indicate if students learn what they should have learned (ETS, 2014).
In regards to the
specified material included on standardized tests, the Common Core is taken
into account. The Common Core plays a huge role in standardized tests. In
general, English language arts and math were the subjects chosen for the Common
Core State Standards because they are areas upon which students build skill
sets that are used in other subjects. Students must learn to read, write,
speak, listen, and use language effectively in a variety of content areas, so
the standards specify the literacy skills and understandings required for
college and career readiness in multiple disciplines. It is the mission of
school systems to create assessments suitable for measuring students’ mastery
of the common core standards (Popham, 2014). A majority of standardized tests incorporate
English reading and writing, and mathematic skills into testing. The major
standardized tests like the SATs and ACTs strictly have subjects of reading,
writing, and mathematics.
References
ETS. 2014. “Purpose of Standardized Tests.” Educational Testing Service.
https://www.ets.org/understanding_testing/purpose
Kastenbaum, Steve. 2012. “The High Stakes of Standardized Tests.” CNN.
http://wtvr.com/2012/05/17/the-high-stakes-of-standardized-tests/
Popham, James. 2014. “Why Do Teachers Need to Know About Assessment.”
Classroom
Assessment: What
Teachers Need to Know. Pearson. P. 4..
I think it is very interesting that you didn't think that AP exams were helpful for learning information for your dream career. I never took AP exams because my school decided who took AP classes (I still have complaints about this and there's more to the story, but I won't elaborate here). As someone who didn't take these exams, I always believed that the exams were testing students on the knowledge they learned about these specific subjects. I thought it was like trying to do well in your other courses because I thought both AP exams and in-class exams were testing on the specific material that one learned (whereas standardized tests like the SAT tested on a more general level of reading, writing, and mathematics). I understand that you felt that you needed to just memorize everything in order to succeed, but is that not what you did for your classes as well? I was wondering if there was anything else that might have inhibited you from retaining the knowledge you needed for these exams. Also, did you find that you had trouble retaining the knowledge from your classes? If not, what made this difference?
ReplyDeleteSo while Common Core is currently for English, Language Arts, and Mathematics and science has standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards there is no one united set of standards created by one organization. Even with the Common Core standards, not all states are currently using the standards which tends to defeat the purpose of having standards. So my question is are there ways you think may be plausible ways to get all of the states to adopt a single set of standards for a subject area? I think that standardized tests are only going to be effective and accurate if it actually encompasses the entire population so if states refuse to adopt those standards then it skews the data.
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