What Is Rose Garrett's Is Standardized Testing Failing Our Kids?
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Ever since I entered high school as a freshman, I heard terrible stories about the SAT exams from
upperclassmen. I didn’t believe them, and I didn’t understand at first what could be so difficult about this test.
“It’s just an exam,” I thought, perhaps trying to make myself feel better. “It can’t be any harder than any other
exam I’ve taken.” It took me until my first SAT attempt to realize what an exhausting process it really was. I
know I’m a smart girl. I took honors classes all throughout high school, I graduated in the top 10% of my class,
and I know that I learn things quickly. However, the SAT test completely threw me for a loop. From the time
length of 5 hours to the countless number of difficult vocabulary words,…show more content… A student’s GPA throughout his or her high school years should play a larger role than
standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT in determining where he or she gets into college.
In the article “Is Standardized Testing Failing Our Kids?” by Rose Garrett, Garrett starts begins by
explaining why many teachers and colleges look highly upon standardized testing. Garrett is a professor of
Education at Pepperdine University, and she has an understanding of educational trends in America over the
past 60+ years. According to Garret, testing of this kind gives teachers a bar to compare students against each
other and helps to identify where work is needed with certain students. This is, in fact, a benefit. However,
there are negatives as well. Many of the concerns associated with these tests come from the fact that
standardized tests tend to have subtle biases in favor of the wealthier class. According to Garret, “These tests
are created by people with money and education and are therefore likely to include phrases and situations that
are not common with people of a lower class” (354). For example, Garret references the following question…show more content… If every student takes the same exam, chances are a
teacher will see will be able to tell who know the material the best based on the scores. In New York, the
Regents exams are the dreaded end-of-the-year tests that every students must take depending on which subject
they are in. The Regents exams change every year, some years becoming extremely difficult and other years
remaining easy. The drawback to this is that some years students might get lucky and receive an easy test,
while the next year a student might receive a hard test and score a low grade. A student might do well in a class
the whole year and receive a low mark on the exam because it was made extremely difficult. The Regents
exams might make teacher’s jobs easier in analyzing a student’s placement based on an exam, but it is not taken
into consideration the difficulty of the exam or that, maybe, a student has test-taking anxiety. If a child does
well the whole year and then does poorly on a final exam, chances are that child is not a good test-taker and
should not be evaluated based on a single test. The Regents is an example of why I believe standardized