The Issue of Standardized Testing in the Educational System

It has come to my attention that some community members are dissatisfied with our current educational system due to the emphasis public schools place on standardized tests. This questions the values of which the educational system holds and further asks which transcends the other, today debated between conformity and individuality. Although it is argued that standardized tests are a reliable way of measuring strident growth, this system is essentially lacking preeminent priority on individualized growth through their own interests and goals, Standardized testing presently places an aggrandized stress on such tests that proceeds to compromise individuals’ potential and derogates his/her liberty of true learning, To a certain degree, conformance still stands as an important value in public schools for the Synonymy of standardized testing.

The congruity basis first teaches students the role and sense of social behavioral standards as a foundation, reasons and is then justified by concluding one “cannot have a democratic 7 indeed, civilized 7 community life unless people have learned how to participate in a disciplined way as part of a group.

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" (Postman).

This is believed to teach students to subordinate to the groups interests rather than their own, which can also be interpreted as positive selflessness. Secondly, an idealized egalitarian social and educational element is created by parallel standards in testing. Education then, in this case, can be seen as “the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” (Mann). Theoretically, by way of congruence in testing, it generates a connection amongst different classes, giving a different sort of independence to the individualt The tests are generalized to supposedly give no one the advantage of individualized leverage.

Lastly, conformity of education, and further, standardized tests, is said to counterwork the tendency of domination of capital, or otherwise known as the wealth gap by means of education. This first assumes that the rich are educated and the poor are ignorant, and goes on to say that property and labor, the poor man’s antagonizing livelihood and goals’ opposites are comfort, competence, generalized intelligence and virtue, which are then attributable to the education and provides a more or less perfect prosperity (Mann).

By the predisposition of assumptions, one may conclude that the spread of education across wealth “ladders", will create a complete education that will “obliterate factitious distinctions in society” (Mann). This condemns social conformity, but encourages it in the form of education, and more specifically, standardized testing. Even though standardized testing claims to accurately track student growth, the importance of singularized, uncompromised potential outweighs it by way of individual growth through goals and interests. The standardization of tests or “subordinating” to one uniform guideline for every student creates a false assumption that every student thinks or learns in the same way, “He (the student) only holds the key to his own secret”, which is his unequivocal individuality (Emerson). Thwarting such inculcated and foreordained needs would only end up hindering the child from pursuing his/her true interests and disrespect him/her (Emerson).

By focusing on specific aspirations that the child truly takes an interest in, the idea of two elements of learning, enthusiasm and drill which were once incompatible, become fused together, as “He can learn anything which is important to him now..,”. (Emerson). As long as a student’s flame of curiosity is lit, the student will thrive through their interests and truly learn. This can then be used for the “bigger picture" aspect of life, as the individual experiences of many are deeply rooted and entangled with one another in uniquely different aspects. This provides variety and complexity rather than congruity and the synchronic shutting down of independence. In some ways, standardized testing does record progression, but for many only constrains and derails the path for liberated and true learning through the subservience of conformity over individuality.

The basis for this is taught as soon as students begin schooling, as “everybody is playing a kind of roleu," and honesty is deprived and suspicion and anxiety run free (Holt) During their schooling, children lose that insatiable thirst to know “why" and instead learn how to “cheat” the system by learning only what their teachers want them to learn to pass, This method is used in standardized testing also, but with the vice of hindered critical thinking as the tests are recognition basedi By the end of grade school, many young adults are left with very little feeling of “his curiosity, his independence..., competence and worth.” This vicious cycle does not create a fair chance of learning what excites and fuels the mind, but rather compromises its endless abilities I end this letter in a stressed emphasis on individual learning, as it is not groups that learn, but individuals (Postman)

By this, a rich sense of depth and understanding will be added not only by and directed towards individuals themselves, but the world of endless opportunities around them This can be done through a foremost value focus on the individual through growth and interests‘ While conformity can be extremely helpful in social standards in education and possibly breaking down predispositions, it unfortunately requires a compromise of a fulfilled potential and subjugates one’s liberty for unadulterated rationale of learning When juxtaposing these consequences and hidden values, it appears to me an obvious appeal: individuality over conformity.