annotated bibliography: standardized tests (blogpost 9)

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.