Standardized Tests: The Ultimate Setback
Harris, Phillip. "Standardized Tests Do Not
Effectively Measure Student Achievement. Standardized
Testing. 2012. Opposing Viewpoints In
Context, www.go.galegroup.com. Accessed
13 Nov. 2016.
In the article, “Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively
Measure Student Achievement” by Phillip Harris, it discusses the reasons why
standardized tests do not show students’ achievement. It goes furtherer into
detail about how the standardized tests do not measure very important qualities
of “achievement” like creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence
and many other characteristics that should be included into today’s student learning.
“Student achievement” should not be about what one received on his or her state
math test or ACT or any standardized tests whatsoever but more about the characteristics
mentioned earlier. The article then states that standardized tests is a reward
for shallow thinking. In other words, tests become incentives for students to
become superficial thinkers or to see the quick, easy and obvious answer. This
then restricts the students to dive deeper into the problem and really think
about what they are trying to find or explain. The article will be a great
reference to me because it explains a lot of wrong characteristics of
standardized tests. I also really enjoy how the author included multiple other
sources in his work to show that other people are supporting his thesis. And
finally, I know that the author is credible because in the beginning of the
article, it states that Phillip Harris is the executive director of the Association
of Educational Communications and Technology and was a faculty member for
twenty-two years at Indiana University.
Soares, Joseph.
"Standardized Tests Discriminate Against Minority and Lower Income Students." College Admissions.
2015. Opposing Viewpoints In Context, www.go.galegroup.com. Accessed 13 Nov. 2016.
“Standardized
Tests Discriminate Against Minority and Lower Income Students” explains how standardized
tests scores are setting back the poor and minority students in America. Joseph
Soares explains that the ACT and the SAT put low income families and minority
students at a significant disadvantage. This then results in colleges becoming
less diverse. He gives an alternative to standardized tests by just having
colleges consider the students’ grade point average or GPA instead of
standardized tests. Richard Atkinson is quoted in the article stating that, “Irrespective
of the quality or type of school attended, cumulative grade point average (GPA)
in academic subject in high school has proved to be the best overall predictor
of student performance in college…” (Soares 2). Also, it has been proven that
there is a strong correlation to one’s family income and the standardized test
scores. As the income increases, so does the test scores. I am going to use
this resource in my paper because I never interpreted standardized testing as a
demographic issue. It opened my eyes as you how unfair and unequal these tests
actually are to students all over the nation. This is a credible source because
the author, Joseph Soares, wrote a whole book on how the SAT tests can damaging
to students and their futures.
“Standardized Tests." International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2nd ed., vol. 8, 2008. Gale Virtual Reference, www.go.gale.com. Accessed 13
Nov. 2016.
In
this source, it explains the background of standardized tests. Standardized
testing was first created in 1900 with the development of the College Entrance
Examination Board. The main purpose of these tests was to encourage the
development of a common curriculum among elite boarding schools. Also, the
original test consisted of mostly essays and was not designed for mass testing.
The SAT was based on Army IQ tests to measure intelligence while the ACT was designed
to measure achievement rather than intelligence. This information will be very
helpful for my paper because it shows the history of standardized tests which I
can describe in my essay. Also in the article, it explains key criticisms of
standardized tests, which are the neglect of environmental differences among
students, particularly those associated with cultural and racial differences
and testing bias and validity. Finally, the article also mentions the No Child
Left Behind Act in 2002 and how that affected standardized testing. This
information will help me show my readers how standardized testing can be very
limiting to students, how the government tried to help and if it really helped
or not. The article seems very reliable because it is from an international encyclopedia
of social science.
Walberg,
Herbert J. "Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student
Achievement." Standardized Testing, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints In Context, www.go.galegroup.com. Accessed
13 Nov. 2016.
My last source I selected is called “Standardized
Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement”, by Herbert Walberg. Walberg
explains why students should take standardized testing and why these tests are
a good thing to our society. He goes further by saying that standardized tests
are generally good at measuring students’ knowledge, skills and understanding because
they are objective, fair, efficient and comprehensive. Also mentioned, the
tests reveal strengths that can help identify the students’ talents to be further
developed in college and in specialized fields of study like law and medicine. This
source is different than my other three because I would like to use this for my
rebuttal section. What I plan on doing is stating Walberg’s information that standardized
tests are beneficial and prove him wrong with my other sources. This article is
credible because Herbert Walberg taught for 35 years at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at
Chicago and is a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. He also has
wrote or edited more than sixty books on education.