The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

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Standardized testing rose to become a prominent force in America’s education landscape with the passing of the 2002 piece of legislation, No Child Left Behind. This law pressed states to hold their teachers and students accountable for their performance through the means of standardized testing (McAdoo). It came about as the solution that would make America’s stagnating education system competitive on the global scale again as it “put a special focus on ensuring that states and schools boost the performance of certain groups of students… whose achievement, on average, trails their peers” (Klein). Since then, the data collected in these tests has been used for more undertakings ranging from recording a pupil’s progress to assessing schools. These things are not necessarily bad, but testing does not provide the best data for people who make decisions that influence education because…show more content…
Testing hasn’t been without benefit to the spider web of sub governments that is the United States school system- but to individuals the costs may outweigh those gains. If standardized testing is to remain in a similar capacity to what it is today then it must adapt to put the people it serves first. Standardized testing must be less intrusive to everyday education. If testing carried less financial weight and penalties to educators who do their jobs well then there wouldn’t be the same need to mobilize classes around test material. Another thing that large scale testing must strive for is to become more transparent with how the data collected turns into tangible changes. Both students and teachers could benefit from having a better understanding of a test’s importance. These final two suggestions would be a great start to making the state of standardized testing more
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