Standardized Testing: Good or Bad

In today’s society, if a school’s standardized test scores are high, individuals think the school’s staff is powerful. On the other hand, if a school’s standardized test scores are low, individuals see the school’s staff as ineffective. In either situation, because instructive quality is being measured by the wrong measuring stick, those assessments are well-suited to be a mistake. ¬¬Standardized tests do not value a student’s creativity, which is why many students are misjudged or misunderstood because of a testing system that is set up for a general public’s standard and not the student’s creative instinct.

According to W. James Popham, a UCLA emeritus professor, a standardized test is any examination that is administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two types of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Aptitude tests anticipate how well students are likely to function in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT and the ACT, both of which attempt to predict how well high school students will perform in college.

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On the other hand, standardized achievement test scores are what school board members rely on to evaluate a school’s efficiency.

Since students realize that test scores may influence their future lives, they do whatever they can to pass tests, including cheating and taking performance drugs. These days, because so much emphasis is placed on standardized test results, teachers are spending more time teaching to the test. Meaning if there is something interesting, compelling, useful, or otherwise favorable to the development of a student’s understanding of the world, but is not going to be on the standardized test, then there really is not any incentive to cover this material.

Instead, most of classroom time consists of either taking the tests or preparing for the tests, and this shuts out the possibility of learning anything new or important. Teaching students only material that will be on a particular test gradually decreases their interest in wanting to learn period. Resulting in the loss of a student’s natural desire to be curious of the world and things in it.

Stated in Linda Naiman’s article, “What is Creativity?” she defines creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, finding hidden patterns, making connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and generating solutions. Many of our nation’s most notable and credible influences were people who had creative mindsets. Always wanting to go deeper in a subject than the average person. Looking beyond the public standard, these people used their God given ability to find new ways for society to thrive and flourish. For example, Benjamin Franklin and his experiments with lightning. Most people would have never went outside in the middle of a thunderstorm with a kite to find out about electricity. But, because of his creativity and curiosity, he did something out of the ordinary, and found one of the world’s most valuable resources.

Instead of schools forcing teachers to teach students how to take a standardized test, they should embrace a student’s curiosity and nurture this inquisitiveness that the student displays. Increasing the amount of knowledge the student can actually learn and retain about the real world. Unfortunately, schools today do not realize that countless numbers of standardized tests are actually hurting students’ creative mind. All students do not learn in the same way or at the same pace. Meaning teaching to one student will vary to the next student. Each student learns in their own unique way. Students are taught to “think inside the box” instead of being rewarded for creativity. Some students are able to adjust their thinking and creativity to succeed, but many students cannot, and sadly lose interest in learning as a whole. Judging a student on their ability to do well on a standardized test is like judging an elephant on its ability to fly. No matter how many times the elephant is taught the mechanics about flying, it will never be able to fly because of its genetic disadvantage. Students’ academic careers are judged by multiple standardized tests that do not accurately prove that the student successfully obtained the required material.