Assessments, or tests, are something that students hate hearing; I remember in high school I would dread tests and quizzes, and sometimes I still do in college. With all of the standardized tests today, on top of regular tests and assessments in school, I can understand why students can feel overwhelmed when they hear the very word "test". I don't know a lot about the pros and cons about standardized testing though, so I thought I would focus on that. Chapter 4 talked a lot about the issues and concerns of high-stakes testing and the two different sides of how people view it.
There are many people who think that high stakes testing is a great benefit in many ways to students. They want to get rid of the process of passing student to the next grade based on their age. I think that doing this is very controversial, but I think it can help students get the maximum out of their education by being able to understand the content fully before moving on. Supporters of standardized testing also believe that it can help schools identify their areas of weakness and be able to get help in those areas to improve.
The list of negative things far outweighs these few good things that supporters of standardized testing believe in. It pointed out in the chapter that standardized testing narrows that curriculum and I would completely agree. I have heard stories and talked to teachers who say that they have to cover the material on standardized tests above anything else that they have little time to cover anything else. If they do cover other things that are not on the tests, I think that students are less likely to remember the material because they think "well, this isn't going to be on the test so I don't need to know it." I also believe that high stakes testing leads students to feel frustrated, especially if they do not normally do well on tests. I had a number of classmates that were not good test-takers, but studied and knew the material better than I did; standardized testing does not account for these students and makes these students feel even more pressure to do well on the test.
Overall I think standardized tests can be very helpful because it is a black and white way of seeing what students know and what they don't, but I think there is a lot more harm in these tests than good. Obviously I will be a teacher who has to deal with standardized testing and I will also have to teach the material that will be on the test. I hope that I can go above and beyond that though and be able to teach things that students will need to further themselves in their math career, and maybe even teach things that students would find interesting that they wouldn't find on the standardized tests.
I was struck by your statement that ". . . standardized tests can be very helpful because it is a black and white way of seeing what students know and what they don't, but I think there is a lot more harm in these tests than good." I completely agree with you. It is a tragedy that teachers have to cut interesting material out of their lessons in order to follow the stringent curriculum guidelines and to ensure that their students will pass high-stakes tests. Standardized tests intimidate both students and teachers. Although they are effective ways to compare a large body of students to one another and to gauge for progress, they have many pitfalls. The most important aspect is that teachers recognize the faults that standardized tests have and that they work to fill in the gaps. That way, our students will not be cheated out of a rich and full education simply due to testing.
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