What Are Standardized Tests Stressful?

Once students come into the school system teachers and peers start talking about standardized tests, such as the ACT the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Often people describe these tests as being essential for high future standing or essential in order to ensure a spot in a decent college. This extreme emphasis on the importance of these standardized tests leads, both students and teachers to fail in and out of the classroom. Stress is abundant in schools, and as Marian Wilde states, It is no wonder students today are under debilitating amounts of stress. High-stakes standardized tests, such as the TAKS in Texas and the FCAT in Florida, are particularly stressful, for students and teachers alike. These tests are emplaced so that students have to
In Florida, children as young as 8 years old face the prospect of being held back if they fail the test (Wilde 2016). Everyone has his/her own way of measuring stress, depression being one measure, but the consensus is that there are more stressed-out kids. As a health news study states, 70 percent of students say they are stressed and 45 percent of students say that stress negatively affects their performance. The biggest reason cited by students was the weight standardized tests carried. Of the 25,000 students questioned from 31 different schools, students that reported stress had a .85 lower grade point average than the non-stressed students. Michael Garcia is one student at Winterset who feels the impacts that standardized tests have. In an interview, Michael Garcia said, “ I get anxious when I think about standardized tests like the ACT, I worry that despite my
32 states have adopted merit based pay in which teachers pay increases are based on student improvements on standardized tests. The exception to this is rule is teachers who educate k through 3rd graders. Their pay is based on the improvements of students in their district, creating a motive to not educate students early so it is easier for them to improve. As the National Association for the Education of Young Children reports in 2015, early educators in recent years, have begun the practice of not teaching students early, thereby setting the bar low, creating a student that will improve easily in the future thus increasing their own merit based pay (NAEYC 2013). The National Association for the Education of Young Children later states that early educators have been caught doing this in 28 states and in hundreds of schools in the U.S. (NAEYC 2013). Students that perform poorly in kindergarten through 4th grade are doomed to underperform in the rest of their student career, but the only option with standardized tests for some teachers to get pay raises in the current system involves undermining the education of young