Standardized Testing

Madison Eastman

Distelrath

AP Language

1/16/17

Standardized Testing

Your school most likely has standardized testing. Standardized testing is very common all over the country. Many people believe that standardized testing provides an accurate measurement of student performance and teacher effectiveness. Others believe that standardized testing only evaluates the individual performance of the student instead of the overall growth of that student over the course of the year.  The SAT is an exam used by most colleges to make admissions decisions. There are two sections to the SAT: Math and Reading and Writing as well as an optional Essay portion. Nearly 20 years later, The ACT was created to provide other colleges and public universities with an admissions exam to use since the SAT was only used by selective institutions in the northeast. The ACT consists of 4 sections: English, Math, Reading, and Science all which are multiple choice. Standardized tests are biased, unfair, and promote cheating in both the students and the teachers; therefore, these tests must be changed.

    First, standardized tests are culturally biased. Tests are made as if everybody were the same and had the same background, believed the same things, and spoke the same language. While taking an important test, what if some students can't fully understand the question because their culture believed something different? Students could think they are getting them all right, but really be getting them all wrong. They aren't getting them wrong because they aren't smart, but they are getting them wrong because the questions they are answering are culturally biased.

Second, the tests are unfair because they seem to be easier for kids coming from more wealthy communities because their parents invest more time and money in them, unlike the kids whose parents cannot. Research shows that children who live in wealthy communities tend to score the highest on tests. This does not mean that these children are any more or less intelligent than others. Just means that their parents can afford additional help such as tutoring and study books which gives them an advantage to the test. According to Martin West, an associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an author of this study, “even though the gaps along lines of race and ethnicity have narrowed—the income achievement gap continues to widen.” For this study, researchers compared MRI brain scans of high and low