Put a Stop to Standardized Testing
Elizabeth Vandergeest, Kirsten Jandrasitz and Nnamdi Njoku
Standardized testing is something all students have to go through in order to be accepted into college. Although this is needed for college acceptance, the testing starts at a very young age. It has grown to be more controversial over the years and debated upon for many different reasons. Some believe that schools are focusing too much on having their students pass the tests rather than teaching them the curriculum that is needed for the future. On the contrast, there are also people who believe that these standardized tests are needed in order to show that schools are adequately teaching their students. We took the opinions of three students at Bloomsburg University and they stated the following:
The SAT’s are a scary time for all of us, a time where one test is the make or break of our career and literally can be the deciding factor for you going to the college of your choice. We think putting that much pressure into one event is too stressful and often is detrimental more then it helps.
Looking back in history the SATs are a way to control and minimize the applications colleges look through. If you don’t hit a certain score most of the time you’re written off unless you go through special programs. Also you have to take into consideration often people with good grades especially in the sense of standardized test apply themselves more and maybe we should test each student on a more personal level as well as an overall IQ test.
There’s some funny insight to share that I experienced the other night watching Netflix found a movie called “Super High Me” it was a movie made in the same fashion of “Super Size Me” a movie that chronicled a man eating fast food for 30 days straight except in this one a man smoked marijuana for thirty days straight. He lived for 30 days sober prior to that. The punch line is he did a lot of testing the whole way threw to see and compare the effects of your body on and off the drug.After the first thirty days sober he took his SATs and after thirty days on the influence he did again, the catch is he scaled higher when he was high!
That’s ridiculous to me and shows the joke the SATs have become. I think he scored higher simply being more into it cause he was under the influence and must of gave more time in his open-ended questions part. He is a comedian so that would make sense if he got excited and wrote an amazing story which is funny to show you that the SATs are just standard they can’t tell everything they were meant to just give you an idea!
-Nnamdi Njoku, Senior, Mass Communications
“I feel standardized testing is an extremely controversial and unnecessary event in life.” -Meghan Friskey
In my opinion standardized testing is not what should qualify a student to move forward in life. I feel students should be looked at throughout their high school career based upon how their grades were, what activities they were involved in and a community service aspect.
Standardized testing causes students to reach a certain point in high school and only focus on studying to reach the highest possible grade to qualify for a good college. They tend to slack in other subjects in high school because they set their mind frame to a test that happens only three times.
These tests add way too much pressure to the students not only in an educational environment but in their households as well. Parents know this test means a lot when applying to colleges so they want their children to be the best performer, many tend to compete with other parents just to see which child received a higher grade. When events like this occur it can cause tension and anxiety within a student forcing them to feel the pressure to succeed beyond the limits. I feel standardized testing should be put to an end and more colleges should focus on the over all student not just one specific score.
-Elizabeth Vandergeest, Sophomore, Public Relations
Just as Albert Einstein once said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Judging the knowledge ability of students today has been increasingly directed towards standardized tests. In some states, like Massachusetts, some high schools make students have to pass a final test to graduate, regardless of the grades in the classroom.
One of the main things needed to get into a decent college is to receive above average scores on the SAT’s and/or ACT’s. This, in the end, is actually declining our education we are giving to our future generations. Most teachers tend to teach more towards how to allow their students to pass a test rather than the actual curriculum that the students should be learning at their specific age. Therefore, this is encouraging students to drop out of school early, therefore lead to declining math scores today in math a reading under the NCLB.
The tests the are given to students have actually been proven to incorrectly rate the knowledge ability of a student. With teachers today only focusing on making their students be able to pass these tests, our education system is declining drastically.
-Kirsten Jandrasitz, Junior, Public Relations
This is a video of high school student Sam Eshagoff who was paid to take the SAT test for other students.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_S3clj0uEU
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Parents-Kids-Against-Standardized-Testing/117479641627357
