Standardized Testing is Hurting Student Achievement

Emily Hernandez, Staff Writer

Nowadays testing is the prominent way to measure student knowledge. It is moving the overall focus away from content and learning. As a result, students have become more aware of the weight they carry, level of preparation needed and expected, stress from wanting to perform well, and other approaches to success on tests.

Tests hold such a huge impact on a student that there is hardly any room for error.

Rhema Thompson explains in the article Too Much Test Stress? Parents, Experts Discuss High-Stakes Standardized Test Anxiety, the weight children are carrying when it comes to tests.

“As a third grader this was Kate’s first year taking the standardized tests, but she already understood what was at stake” (Thompson 1).

Third grade is a young age to be worrying over a test, it show how much show emphasizes there is in performing well on a single assessment.

Ryan Collay explains in Standardized Tests Teach Kids the Wrong Lesson where students fall together with their scores.

“Typical test scores fall in a range that fits into a familiar bell curve, a small number of scores are very low or very high” (Collay 2).

Encouraging success on tests but not seeing a change in scores should be an indicator that testing is not an effective way to measure a student’s knowledge.

Students are not the only ones that have something on the line, teachers are just as vulnerable to the results of the tests.

“By next year, teacher pay in state will also be tied to student performance on standardized tests” (Thompson 1).

Teacher’s salaries should not be based off how well students perform on a test. There could have been issues on the tests such as a mutual misunderstanding in a question, or the student may not be the strongest test taker.

Unfortunately, these are the types of tests that you cannot study for. It is an overview of knowledge that one can only hope they know going into the testing area.

“The lack of time for teachers and students to prepare for the next year’s high-stakes exam may only add to the pressure” (Thompson 2).

There is limited time as it is to go over all the chapters needed to complete the course, adding these tests cause less time to go over material that is imperative to a child’s learning.

One example of a flawed standardized test is shown in Thompson’s article.

“The new exam being developed by American institutes for research, will be field-tested in Utah in the fall before being administered to Florida students the following spring” (Thompson 2).

Running an exam when there is little room to fix error is very risky and could potentially set individuals taking that test up for failure.

An article found on Kids Health gives tips to help students prepare before the test.

Good study habits- avoid cramming the night before (Kidshealth.org).

Collay compares parent involvement from decades ago to now.

“Parents provided reading and homework time, took their children to the library and encouraged their ownership of their learning” (Collay 2).

Students have become very self-involved in their education with hardly any guidance from older generations.

Unfortunately, this has caused many drawbacks.

“Test anxiety is a type of performance anxiety- a feeling someone might have in a situation where performance really counts or when the pressure’s on to do well” (kidshealth.org 1).

This could have a great effect on the individual and could cause them to perform terribly on the exam.

Test anxiety brings many symptoms that can stress a student before the test which adds more pressure.

Other symptoms include butterflies, tension headaches, feeling shaky or sweaty, or your heart beating fast (kidshealth.org 2).

Although, it has now become aware that there are ways to battle those symptoms.

Some tips to help deal with stress are using it one’s advantage, asking for help, being prepared, think positive thoughts, accept mistakes, and taking care of oneself (kidshealth.org 3-4).

There have been approaches taken in other countries that have proven success in the testing aspect of education.

In Finland’s School Success, Anu Partanen discusses the risks taken by the Finland education system and the positive feedback they have been receiving from young pupils.

“…in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world” (Partanen 969).

They encourage creativity as opposed to more homework, provide benefits to students such as counseling and free meals, and on top of that have no private institutions or tuition fees.

This could benefit individuals by lessening focus on certain important aspects outside of school to steer attention to what is going on in the classroom.

“Some education leaders try to defend the use of standardized tests as a necessary evil to manage school” (Collay 1).

Instead of measuring student achievement through tests, it should be taken into consideration to monitor the classroom effort.