standardized tests

Say “NO” to Standardized Tests What would you think if you didn’t really know English but were still given an English test based on the standards of an average English speaker? Y ou might not believe it but this problem has occurred commonly for the past few years and will keep on happening if we don’t make a change to it. Standardized tests, which means any test that is administered, scored, and interpreted in a standardized, predetermined manner, are troubling students, troubling teachers, and troubling schools Kids, even newborns, go through standardized tests rapidly nowadays. Kisha Lee, who runs the state-certified Alternative Preschool Solutions in Accokeek, said, “Kids get tested and labeled as soon as they get into kindergarten, they have to pass standardized test from the second they get in. I saw kindergarteners who weren’t used to taking a test, and they fell apart, crying, saying they couldn’t do it. The child who can sit and answer the question correctly is identified as talented.”(Lee, 1) This isn’t healthy for the kids. Scientists who study children’s health issues said that children, at such a young age, shouldn’t be given so much pressure. The fact that the US prepare students for SA T at the age of six is even more unbelievable to them. There are many things we need to learn, and that’s why we are given twenty years to learn it. Six year olds, proven by scientists, don’t have a brain as developed as the brain of a twelve year old, but they are almost forced to take standardized tests. Sternberg has said, “They are assigned a value way beyond what they actually have.”(Sternberg, 2) “A single test can determine grade promotion, a teacher’s salary, and a principle’s job.”(“The”, 2). This strongly pointed out the fact that standardized tests are completely

insane. Its value is assigned far more than what it actually worth. A teacher can’t be fired just because her class got a bad average on a test, it could be the students’fault of not listening. And a youngster can’t be unaccepted just because he or she messed up on a certain subject, that person may be better at other works. And a school can’t be marked as “bad at education”just because the average grade goes down; it may have good teaching materials but less smart students. In fact, it is a vicious cycle. As soon as the school’s reputation goes down, smart students stop studying in that school, and then, more less smart people enter, which then causes the school to be full of less smart people but excellent teaching materials. The less smart people aren’t dumb, they might just be better at another subject. Therefore, I believe that schools should reduce the standardized tests that students take.

After all, standardized tests are proved to be harmful to students. Many people have stood up to oppose but are covered by the majority of people who support it, in which most of them don’t know the harm of standardized tests. Students, especially young kids, are now filled with pressure, we need you to know what the kids are suffering through and show your support. One person can make a great change; you can be the one who makes it.