Standardized Testing

            I was never someone who did well on standardized tests, and from what I’ve gathered I’m not alone.  Vast majority of my friends agree that the standardized tests they took in elementary, middle, and high school were pointless, inaccurate, and a waste of their time.  The general attitude towards standardized testing makes me wonder why it still exists—it’s obviously a very controversial topic and there’s a lot of people who don’t like it.  However, the fact that is still exists makes me think that there may be some small benefits.  I just don’t feel these benefits are large enough to condone standardized testing, or at least the type of standardized testing we experience in our schools.  I think if standardized testing is going to happen then it needs to happen in a more efficient way, and we need to interpret the results differently and not put such a large emphasis on them.  We need to not take them as seriously because they aren’t accurate representations of what our students know, and the test questions aren’t testing what they say they are.  Due to complicated vocabulary and abstract examples the questions are testing knowledge of different subjects than they say they are.  If the questions were worded more accurately and there wasn’t such a large emphasis on the tests, I would be more in favor of standardized testing in education. 

With standardized testing being the way it is now, I’m not a fan of using it in education.  I don’t feel it paints an accurate picture of what students are capable of or what we should be teaching them, and I also find it to be not only unfair to students who are in the general education curriculum, but also very unfair to students in programs such as special education or English language learners.  It’s also unfair to schools in terms of the No Child Left Behind act that involves increasing or decreasing funding towards schools depending on their standardized test scores.