...Preparing Students for Standardized Tests: Strategies for Success Maria Fenwick is a fourth grade teacher. During her lessons, she incorporate different techniques that the students should us during testing. She collects data on how well her students are understanding the test requirements. From previous years of testing with her students she sees a trend with open response questions. In this scenario, Ms. Fenwick has the student answer an open response question. She turns her classroom into a testing center during test to prepare them for the actual test. During her lesson, Ms. Fenwick teaches the students how to answer the questions. She prepares the student without compromising her lesson. This approach isn’t like teaching to the test but...
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...Standardized tests measure the knowledge and/or skills of a students. In the test there are many multiple choice and some short answer questions in math and science. In today's society, standardized testing has been a highly debated and well-argued subject among people. While some believe that standardized testing is necessary for cultural advancement, others believe that there is too much emphasis on the standardized test scores. Standardized testing has not improved student achievement, Studies show that standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance and they measure only a small portion of what makes education meaningful. In classrooms all over the nation, students take this standardized test, and teachers expect a positive result, but this is not one of those situations. Standardized testing has not been proven to improve student achievement in classrooms. An example for this is, the National Research Council report found no evidence that are test-based incentive programs are...
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...Should public schools continue standardized testing? The United States government implemented the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA), signed into law on January 8, 2002 by President George W. Bush (US Government Printing Office, 2002). This Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills. In order to receive federal school funding, states must give these assessments to all students at select grade levels. The Act does not assert a national achievement standard. Each state develops its own standards (US Government Printing Office, 2002). Since the creation of this act, various debates challenge the practical use of the standardized tests. The debate presented for this paper is an argument, “Should public schools continue standardized testing?” The favorable arguments are that the standardized tests are fair, backed by parents, improves the quality of the curriculum, and the usage of standardized tests outside of the public education system. The arguments against standardized testing are stereotyping poor performing students, testing anxiety, low morale with teachers, and basing teacher evaluations on student performance. Additionally, ethical, moral and legal issues are identified in relation to standardized testing and their effects on high-stakes testing. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the given arguments, both for and against standardized testing from different sources and to conclude with a consensus of the arguments with the authors of this...
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...allow [them] to show their knowledge of the material’.” Also, the same study reports, “when students get to choose their own exam format, their learning styles become more highly correlated with their performance.” Even though such a high percentage of students claim that the format of a test influences how well they do on it, most educators aren’t talking...
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...Annotated Bibliography for Standardized Testing Perry Barr Devry University Annotated Bibliography for Standardized Testing : I was always told that one bad apple will spoil the whole bunch; which is true. Standardized Testing should be used to find the child with a learning disability and work with that child. Not to grade the whole school and that school gets a poor grade. That’s like taking a bunch of apples and throwing them out just because a couple of them were spoiled. A person needs to work with the good parts of the apple and make apple pie. Improve the child by adding things that will take that child higher and increase their ability to learn. Gregory J. Cizek, "Unintended Consequences of High Stakes Testing - P-12,” Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, Sep. 2001 Susan Ohanian, "Collateral Vomitage,” www.susanohanian.org, Mar. 14, 2002 Standardized testing causes severe stress in younger students. According to education researcher Gregory J. Cizek, anecdotes abound “illustrating how testing... produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both.” On Mar. 14, 2002, the Sacramento Bee reported that “test-related jitters, especially among young students, are so common that the Stanford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do with a test booklet in case a student vomits on it.” Cizek is an education researcher and I believe his studies are in depth to the topic I am documenting. Assessment:...
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...The long history of standardized testing began in the 7th Century Imperial China where the test was administered to people seeking jobs in the government (Mathews). The tested used by the Chinese tested the applicants' knowledge of Confucian philosophy and were used up until 1898 (Crozier). For the Western world, the Industrial Revolution brought about the movement to bring school aged kids working in factories and on farms to the classroom. Standardized testing allowed the newly expanded student body to be tested efficiently (Jehlen). The use of standardized testing exponentially rose after the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 which mandated annual testing in all 50 states (Coulson). The use of standardized testing is now split into a like or dislike because of the amount of achievement, the reliability, and the amount of discrimination they bring. Achievement brings about the sense of accomplishment and opponents of standardized testing believe that standardized testing does not bring about a sense of accomplishment because standardized testing has not improved student achievement. After the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2002, the United States decreased from 18th in the world in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment to 31st place in 2009 and with a lesser decrease in science but no change in the ranking for reading (Walker). Opponents of standardized testing use a National Research Council report from 2011 that found no evidence that...
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...Standardized Testing Over this past summer, a close friend of mine explained to me the school that he had applied to recently. My friend has been switching schools quite frequently due to his particular learning style and academic needs. He applied to this particular school due to the fact that there is no standardized testing. This factor made him very happy; but, in his youthfulness I think he failed to realize the true benefits of the lack of standardized tests in schools. When standardized tests are in placed in a school district, they greatly warp the school’s academic curriculum. For example: the teachers must teach material that will appear on the standardized tests. For if they don’t, the students will perform poorly on the tests; thus, reflecting poorly on the teachers, which reflects poorly on the school district as a whole. In addition, any school district which uses standardized tests (I’ll call them “standardized schools) will not be...
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...Standardized Testing Standardized testing is probably one of the most bittersweet aspects of American education. On one hand, It helps us set a baseline of where students are academically and what needs to be approved on in average. On the other, it adds a tremendous amount of stress to some students, and encourages the system to lean to a curriculum that “teaches to test”. In this essay, I will discuss the pros and cons of standardized testing and provide my personal opinions on it in the end. Standardized testing does a pretty good job of establishing a baseline of where students land and what needs to be improved on. “Standardized testing gives parents a good idea of how their children are doing as compared to students across the country and locally.”(Columbia University School and Child Care Search Service 1). This also gives us areas that need to be improved on. Another good thing about standardized testing is that it helps teachers know what material needs to be taught during the year. “Probably the greatest benefit of standardized testing is that teachers and schools are responsible for teaching students what they are required to know for these standardized tests.” (Columbia University School and Child Care Search Service 1). Standardized testing improves international rankings as...
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...and how they are teaching and also helps students focus. Despite opinions on standardized testing that it narrows curriculum, many students are now taking more courses in foreign language and fine arts. (Wolf, p. 693, 2007) Students who know they will be tested on material are more likely to commit to studying the material in depth in order to be prepared. According to Wolf (as cited in World Bank, 2002), “Without regular testing teaching...
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...Standardized Testing- How Beneficial is it? Student Name Toulmin Model Position Paper English Comp II – 112 Phaire Due Date – mm/dd/yy Word Count – nnn Outline Position Statement: Is ‘No Child Left Behind’ a valid method of assessing school, teacher and student performance? No, I do not think this act is a valid method to assess school, teacher and student performance. Rhetorical Context: This issue will address all the problems that are occurring because of the standardized testing which is taking place in all public schools. This issue is important to parents who have children going to public schools because it gives them an overview of what is wrong with this act. It is also important for the teachers and school administrators since they take some part in shaping the curriculum around standardized testing. Audience Analysis: The audience for this essay will be the parents because they are able to make changes to this act. Many parents may not understand the problems that this act is causing which can be quite harmful for their children. Many parents let the government make laws for the schools, because they think if the government is doing it, it must be right. Claim: The ‘No Child Left Behind’ act is not a valid method to assess school, teacher and student performance. Reasons: There are many reasons why ‘No Child Left Behind is not working. 1. The same tests are used for all students...
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...Standardized Testing: Reduce the Reliance In the year of 1845, Horace Mann proposed the idea of written exams, as opposed to the traditional oral exam. Mann wanted to achieve the discovery of new and innovative teaching methods to ensure that students were receiving the best education, as well as equal opportunities in school. Despite the educational pioneer’s suggestion of promising unsurpassed schooling through written exams, these standardized assessments became something much more intense than what Mann had planned (Gershon). From students receiving one-hundred and thirteen standardized assessments throughout their entire schooling career to spending twenty to twenty-five hours of wasted classroom time taking these assessments, education...
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...Testing in schools has always been common; teachers need a way to arbitrate if students are understanding and obtaining the knowledge being taught. However, a different type of test is becoming prominent in school systems. Standardized testing, examinations administered and scored in a standard manner (7), are taking over the school systems. Standardized tests administered to students are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Aptitude tests predict student’s performance, like the common ACT and SAT that colleges frequently use; achievement tests evaluate teacher and school effectiveness (7). Although standardized tests are becoming significant in school curriculum, the results do not accurately represent student or teacher abilities....
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...In the United States, millions of students partake in what we call standardized testing. Standardized testing is an unfair test that is administered to students and they are scored in a consistent manner. These tests are designed in such a way that the questions and procedures for scoring are homogenously consistent and students are scored in a predetermined, yet standard manner. The performance of a student should not be shown through standardized testing because the results are inaccurate. Standardized tests puts a lot of pressure on educators, students and parents; producing anxiety and causing parents to allow their children to opt out of tests. Standardized tests should be boycotted as a whole in schools because it is an irrelevant and inaccurate way of testing. These tests hinder a student’s overall learning potential. “Teachers agreed that standardized tests are unfair and provides misleading results” (Map and Kennedy 130). The current use of standardized testing does not in fact help educate students with their learning. Too much time is spent testing when it could be spent...
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...10/25/10 Over the years standardized testing has played a major role on education. Preparation for these test has become important for teachers since a student may take a least one standardized test per year. And therein lies the problem; relying heavily on standardized test, whether or not these test actually have reliable scores and are worth the extensive focus. Standardized test negatively affect student learning because they focus on certain topics and generate unreliable test scores due to certain factors. These factors include limitation of creativity, narrowing of curriculum, use of outdated methods, repetition, race and gender. In my research I have found significant data supporting my views. But first it is important to understand what standardized tests are. Standardized tests are different from other testing because they have uniform procedure. This means that they have the same time limits, fixed set of questions, and the scoring is also carefully outlined and uniform. Standardized test are usually scored objectively but there can be some questions such as a short answer question or personality questions which can be scored differently. Almost all test can be classified as informal or formal; a test given and create by a teacher is informal, but a standardized test is classified as formal (Mehrens and Lehmannn). There are certain characteristics a test must have to be a standardized test. The first characteristic is that the test...
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...Introduction A. Social Problem Education plays an important role in the way a particular country progresses. The US has always strived for high education standards; however, recent statistics point out that the country has competitively fallen behind when compared to other developed countries. For this reason, education has played an important role in the US agenda for many years. In January 8th, 2002, the US Congress passed a law called “No Child Left Behind Act” (NCLB), which expanded the role of federal government in education. This law strongly emphasizes the implementation of standardized tests in public schools to measure the progress of students as well as to hold teachers and schools accountable for students’ progress. A social problem that the NCLB is trying to fix is the fact that the quality of education in US’ public schools has decreased during the last years. Alarming statistics have shown that the country’s education system is not as internationally competitive as it used to be. For example, according to a report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States has slipped ten spots in high school and college graduation rates in the past three decades (CFR). Poor education affects the entire country because of the close relation that progress has with having a skillful workforce. Furthermore, other social problems, such as poverty and crime, are indirectly related to inferior education. An extensive body of research has found that people with...
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