Despite the benefits teachers and schools obtain, standardized testing like the FCAT is not effective in evaluating student’s performance because not all students learn at the same level, they fall under pressure, and they are being taught just for the test which prevents from learning skills that are yet to be learned. Admittedly, the FCAT brings benefits to
Everything academic revolves around the year-end state testing to the point that other subjects are usually neglected. Reading, math and writing are the main thrusts of schools, and are obviously important. However, critics state that children are not receiving well-rounded educations because of the emphasis on these subjects
I mean, sure, grades are very motivational, but they are also very harming. Countless suicides are caused by grades and pressure, and I think it just really isn’t necessary to put a student on the spot like that. Let’s say a student makes straight A’s. That’s great in most cases, but does it really self-motivate the student into learning more, or does it give them a little lee-way to slack off and maybe not study as much? Or let’s say that a student gets straight C’s.
NCLB was established so that students were not held back in a grade and were promoted to the next grade. I think this is a political aspect that is failing our students. If a student is not understanding the material or doesn’t pass the tests showing that they understand and can retain the information, I don’t believe that they should be promoted. I believe that it only hurts the students because they get more behind as they advance through the levels. The ethical issues that regard the high stakes testing is that it could be unfair to some students.
But as of today it’s still the same cell block schools in the confined rooms with the teachers teaching what the state wants the teachers to teach the kids so they pass all these tests. And now I hear they want to hold back third graders if they can’t read at a third grade level. So yes I think times have changed in the past centuries on what Gatto says. I feel more and sorrier for the teachers now than I did as I was growing up. I guess I was blind to see how teachers have to teach and how they teach.
My freshman year, I took geometry as my math elective and I often corrected the teacher and got sarcastic remarks in return. I never did my homework because test in the class summed up to 70% of the grade, so I decided to get A’s on the test and pass, and I did. Science and English were the worst. All the experiments we did were strictly control; we would proceed with a step until the teacher allowed us to do so. And English has become a subject of intimidation, the reason being that in my four years of high school English; we watch so many movies that I did not learn proper writing skills and proper communication skills.
“Millions of American children struggle in school daily because of serious learning problems” (PBS.ORG, 2002). It is unfortunate that millions of American children are faced with serious learning problems because of a physical disability, mental disability, or a learning disability. Schools are very preoccupied with their yearly State of California Testing and they fail to meet the needs of those children that struggle with simple daily school work. It is said that out of 150 children 1 in born with Autism. That means that out of a school of a thousand students, around 10 or nine students are on the Autism Spectrum Disorder; but that doesn’t include those other children with other different disabilities.
With this in mind, administrators are stuck trying to figure out what in the world are they doing wrong. Of course, it is not always the teachers to blame for students not passing because there are kids that do not make the
There are some major problems with using them. Students with high I.Q’s are expected to do better than the rest of their class, and on the flip side students with low I.Q.’s are expected to do worse. That is not always fair because students with low I.Q.’s might not get the attention needed simply because their teachers do not expect much from them. In the end there is no fairness to some. This leads to an ethical question of, is giving an intelligence test ethical?
They stress day and night over these overrated tests, like previously stated channeling out the imagination, curiosity and good will. Besides being an imprecise measure for students, they use them to judge a teacher’s performance as well, essentially used to either reward or punish them. Standardized test are not helping us very much right now. In conclusion, the usage of standardized tests should be discontinued or by the very least lessened. These tests are not helping people, it’s initially having a negative effect on students and teachers.