Standardized Testing

I think most of us here on the Boards know what standardized testing is.
I also think it’s reasonably to assume that most people dislike it, too.

So…

discuss!

I’ll start.
Standardized testing isn’t a good way to test people’s knowledge. People learn differently from each other, and subsequently they also portray that knowledge differently.

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…Why does this topic exist?

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This exists because Meep wanted to talk about it. Now, if we’re done gatekeeping topics…

I’m eh on standardized testing. Don’t hate it as much as I could because I’ve always been a good test-taker; for some reason remembering random details and picking them out of four options is something I’m good at. :stuck_out_tongue: I agree that it’s maybe not a great thing to use as a universal metric for how “smart” a student is, though. It’s a very specific way of applying intelligence at best, and the prevalence of the internet is kinda making it less and less necessary to remember things.

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I’m alright at that.
not great, though. [quote=“jayzor17, post:3, topic:50769”]
I agree that it’s maybe not a great thing to use as a universal metric for how “smart” a student is, though. It’s a very specific way of applying intelligence at best, and the prevalence of the internet is kinda making it less and less necessary to remember things.
[/quote]

Yeah, that’s true.

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Personally, I don’t like standardized testing. I personally test really well. My sister has dyslexia, and so scores lower than if you pick randomly. The testing caters to what is becoming a minority of students while at the same time making people feel stupid who are actually really smart. (At least that has been my experience. )

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Just get through it and then go to college and get a real education with professors that bring snacks for you.

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I stopped thinking that grades are all what matters a long time ago.
Tho my biggest gripe with tests is that I just don’t have the time to write as much as I would want to.

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I think that these tests are just the easiest way to get a broad view of the intelligence of a group of people. It might not be the way that some people would want to express their intelligence but it probably covers the most area in intellectual expression. If you were to be rid of these tests what would replace it?

And there is the clincher. Standardized testing isn’t perfect, (like anything humans make) but it’s the best option currently. There’s a trade-off between efficiency and fairness, versus effectiveness.

You could tailor every test to every child’s test taking ability, but that would be very expensive and inefficient, and could be unfair.

On the other end, if they completely ignore the children’s test taking skills, the tests would be cheap, efficient, and fair, but ineffective.

Standardized testing is the best of both worlds. It’s a balance. It has enough different kinds of questions to make it as effective for as many people as possible, without being prohibitively expensive and inefficient.

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I would say that is up for debate. Many European countries, Sweeden for example, have completely done away with standardized testing. They even saw a large improvement in their education system when they made that change.

To be fair, Sweden also emphasizes much more on trade schools than standard American education. However, school systems is not the issue at heart.

The real issue is a lack of discipline in American schools. Students are passed too easily and the blame for bad grades has started to fall on teachers. Teachers are treated more like daycare. They have to look after children who simply don’t wish to learn. Children pass elementary and middle school without actually understanding math, history, and English until finally forced into high school where that matters. Then, in high school, they fall behind. So the school system thinks “huh standardized testing might be the solution!” or “throwing more money at it may help!”

No, the issue is lack of discipline and criticism to students. You know why Europe is surpassing us? Because Europe doesn’t have students ingrained with a sense of entitlement. They are criticized, they fail, and they strive to be better with a sense of competition. Yet Americans see what is going on there and think: “huh. Sweden has outdoor classes. Maybe that’s the magical solution!”

There is no positive magical solution. The solution is to establish students with critical thinking and allow them to fail. Once they fail, they either can chose to stay a failure or actually work hard, get smarter and wiser, and succeed. Because success is not just handed to us.

This is why South Korea, despite the amount of suicides, has far better education than the US. It’s extremely competitive. If American schools just had a slight more competition in them (not too much) perhaps there would be more priority to do well.

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True. I didn’t mean to imply that at all. I was just saying that standardized tests aren’t unequivocally the best solution. It will depend on the person and how they learn.

Very much agreed there. I spent most of my 6th grade year reading because in each of my classes there was someone who refused to learn while I grasped the concepts quickly. He held the whole class back complaining the whole time that he wasn’t smart and couldn’t do it. (Fortunately my family went to homeschool after that year.)

It is also really sad as you note that teachers are being blamed for the bad grades. That puts the blame for lack of education on someone who has little control in some situations. (I’m not saying that a good teacher can’t improve one’s learning speed, just that even a good teacher can’t make someone learn when they refuse.)

I agree again. There seems to be a cultural “safety net” being built in the US that will make it impossible to really fail. When you lose the negative, the positive loses meaning and there is no desire to improve. This is easily seen in school and children’s sports.

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