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Carly Jackson

Shannon Freestone

English 12

16 February 2017

Should Standardized Testing be Eliminated?

In 1905 French psychologist Alfred Binet began developing a standardized test of

intelligence, work that would eventually be incorporated into a version of the modern IQ test,

dubbed the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. By World War I, standardized testing was a

standard practice. Based on the research I have found, I think that we need to remove

standardized testing. First, I will talk about how standardized tests are an unreliable source to

measure student achievement. The second paragraph will explain that it causes a lot of stress on

both the students and the educators. Third, I will explain that the success of schools are

dependent on how well their students do on the tests, which is an unfair way of grading schools.

Lastly, I will discuss why other people may think standardized testing should exist and use

evidence to prove why they are incorrect.

People often rely on standardized tests to show how their students are improving.

Although many people think standardized tests are a reliable source to show how well their

students are doing, many people have shown that it is not. The National Center for Fair and

Open Testing wrote the article called Whats Wrong With Standardized Tests says, A test is

completely reliable if you would get exactly the same results the second time you administered

it. All tests have measurement error. This means an individual's score may vary significantly

from day to day due to testing conditions or the test-taker's mental or emotional state. Scores of
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young children and scores on subsections of tests are particularly unreliable. A test being

reliable has to have consistent scores for the same student, but they change questions and

sometimes the difficulty, so they are unreliable. The test makers dont include factors like

mental and emotional state which may affect the students performance. There are more factors

than just how well the students do on the test on one day.

Students have a lot of stress, an unhealthy amount, because of this tests. Sometimes,

because of a standardized tests, students are denied a high school diploma. Students, knowing the

consequences of not doing well on these types of tests, have a lot of stress. Gregory J. Cizek

explains the consequences of these high stress levels in his article More Unintended

Consequences of High-Stakes Testing. He states, illustrating how testing narrows the

curriculum, frustrates the best teachers, produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students,

and makes young children vomit or cry, or both. Because of these high stress levels, this can

cause depression and anxiety, pain of any kind, sleep problems, autoimmune diseases, digestive

problems, etc. These consequences of having high stress levels are often so bad that they can

affect how you live the rest of your life, and can often lead to a different life path than they

intended.

Next, I will discuss why it is unfair to schools, because they get graded on how well their

students do on the standardized tests.