Running head: STANDARDIZED TESTS

Standardized Testing:
Pushing Out Multicultural Education
Summer D. Young
Ivy Tech Community College

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Abstract

In the last decade where test-taking and standardized testing have overtaken the culture of
classrooms, multicultural education has been all but abandoned. This narrowed curriculum has
diminished the ideal of what a multicultural education exemplifies, which is placing the student
at the center of learning (Gollnick & Chinn 2013). Despite an over-emphasis on standardized
testing and filling the achievement gap, teachers have the responsibility to be culturally
responsive to all of his or her students. This means interweaving the diverse cultures of every
student into the classroom and gaining perspective.

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[The body of your paper uses a half-inch first line indent and is double-spaced. APA style
provides for up to five heading levels, shown in the paragraphs that follow. Note that the word
Introduction should not be used as an initial heading, as its assumed that your paper begins with
an introduction.]
Standardized Tests: Pushing Out Multicultural Education
In the decades since it was first thought that multicultural education should be integrated
into classrooms, standardized testing and filling the achievement gap has taken the place of
integrating multicultural curriculum in the classroom and school curriculum (May & Sleeter,
2010). Multicultural education and curriculum has been placed on the back-burner as the new
age of standardized testing leads the way. Classrooms and curriculum have been re-vamped to
ensure that both teachers and students are meeting the criteria for those standardized tests so that
no child is left behind, when in fact children are being left behind. Standardized testing does not
care about a students culture or how her she learns best. As a result of a curricula that
standardizes, students are being prepared for test-taking, but what are they learning? Teaching is
much more than just about content. It is about understanding who the students are and engaging
them in the process of learning. Students tend to learn more effectively when they can integrate
their culture and background into a classroom
Culture determines who individuals are. Culture effects a persons values, beliefs, ideals,
and knowledge (Gollnick & Chinn, 2013). Culture influences how people speak, what they wear,
how they wear it, what they eat, what they think, and how they think it (Ryan, 2010). A persons
culture is so embedded in everything that they do that it can be difficult to understand and
interpret the cultural cues from a culture other than ones own. When diverse cultures come

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together in a classroom setting, misinterpretation of culture could lead to potential problems if

the teacher does not grasp an understanding of where the students come from and how they learn
best. Standardized tests assert the danger of measuring academics based off of what is culturally
valued by the dominant group and excluding things that are culturally specific to minority
children (Gollnick & Chinn, 2013).
When integrating multicultural education in a classroom, educators have the opportunity
to engage a classroom full of students in an array of cultures. Incorporating multicultural
education and curriculum in the classroom demonstrates the qualities of an effective teacher by
giving each child the quality education that he or she deserves despite their socioeconomic status
or cultural background. If a teacher has twenty-five students, there is potentially twenty-five
culturally different children and the opportunity to integrate many different cultures into a
curriculum. According to Gollnick and Chinn (2013), Multiculturalism is not a compensatory
process to make others more like the dominant group, it is, however, an opportunity for teachers
to expand upon and incorporate learning on an equal level for all students in a classroom, not just
based on preparation for standardized testing.
Multicultural education is not a program or a quick workshop session for teachers to
incorporate into their curriculum. Teachers should gain perspective that perhaps if a child is not
responding or reacting to classroom instruction or curriculum it is a lack of cultural perspective
on the part of the teacher. Depending on their cultural background, this includes but not limited
to socioeconomic status, values, race, and gender. One journal article states, When a student
who is of a different ethnic, racial, or socioeconomic background from the teacher, tunes out
from the lessons of the classroom, a teacher with a very limited perspective is likely to blame the

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child and his or her home life (Bohn & Sleeter, 2000). This limited perspective endangers the
philosophy that all students deserve and should be getting an individualized, equal education.

Teachers are being forced to become test-managers, rather than educators, who should be
teaching and incorporating a multicultural curriculum that melts the divide of a culturally diverse
nation. Multicultural education should be at the forefront of instruction in a classroom. Teachers
who incorporate multiculturalism in their classrooms become more effective teachers and thus
have more effective learners.

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References

Bohn, A.P., & Sleeter, C.E. (2000). Multicultural Education and the Standards
Movement Phi Delta Kappan, 82(2), 156.
Conchas, G. Q., & Rodrguez, L. F. (2007). Small schools and urban youth: Using the power of
school culture to engage students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Gollnick, D. M., & Chinn, P. C. (2013). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society. Boston:
Pearson.

May, S., & Sleeter, C. E. (Eds.). (2010). Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis. Routledge.

Ryan, M. (2010). Cultural studies:A practical introduction. Malden, MA:Wiley-Blackwell