Standardized testingStandardized tests are exams given to students at the end of each academic year. The results are used to determine whether or not students move to the next grade level. As our society places more emphasis on education, many school dist

Standardized testing

Standardized tests are exams given to students at the end of each academic year. The results are used to determine whether or not students move to the next grade level. As our society places more emphasis on education, many school districts, along with the federal government, are using standardized tests to ensure that students receive the best education possible, and we should support this.

First, these tests are given statewide and nationwide, thereby setting a strong standard for all schools to follow. In order to advance, students are required to achieve a minimum score that shows they have acquired the basic, necessary skills of their level. Teachers must therefore emphasize the appropriate material or face the possibility that their students will not pass. This pressure nearly guarantees that students, regardless of environment or background, receive a standard, quality education.

In addition, with these exams, schools become more accountable for the success of their students. By averaging the scores of students, the quality of education of different schools can be compared. With this information, state and federal governments can identify those schools with exceptional results and reward them accordingly as well as identify those performing poorly and offer the necessary aid or take other appropriate actions to help them improve.

Finally, the results of these exams can be used to provide help to those students who need it most. Simply moving children into the next grade level because of age and not ability has long been a staple of most academic institutions. This social promotion needs to end. With these tests, promotion to the next level will be only for those students who pass and show the necessary ability to move forward while those who don’t pass will stay behind to receive more assistance.

lecture:

There is a great deal of emphasis placed on education in our culture, but that has nothing to do with standardized tests and is no reason to use them. These exams are not tools to help students or schools, or anyone for that matter, improve. If anything, they inhibit progress, hurting schools and students alike.

To begin, forcing schools to use these tests will push them all to teach the same things. But, teachers need the freedom to address the needs of their students and these tests don’t give instructors that freedom. They tell teachers what to teach without even knowing the learning styles or interests of the different students in the thousands of different schools in which these tests are given. Put simply, these tests take the power to teach away from trained educators.

Second, students in underperforming schools will be punished whether they pass or not. You see; these tests are often used to determine how much funding schools receive. The better schools perform, the more aid they collect. However, no consideration is made for those schools in rough neighborhoods in which the poor performance of students is more a result of the negative environment than the school itself. How are these students helped when instead of receiving more of the funding they need, this system gives them less?

Third, students who don’t do well won’t be helped. Under this system, a few exams are created for hundreds of different schools with thousands of different students of differing backgrounds, learning styles, and test-taking skills. Yet, these tests determine if all of them will pass or fail. What if these students respond badly to pressure, feel ill, or test poorly? Will this system provide the kind of help these students need by failing them and keeping them in the same grade level? No.

Question: Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the points made in the reading passage. You have 20 minutes to type your response.