Why Do We Need Standardized Testing?

For over one hundred years, students of all ages are forced every year to endure the stress of pressure packed and ubiquitous standardized tests. They need to have their number two pencils ready as they mentally prepare themselves to take a test for hours on information that might not have even been covered. Standardized tests consist of fill in the blank and multiple choice questions, they require all test takers to answer the same questions in a consistent manner. Standardized testing is the main method of testing in the United States. These tests are used to determine progress, growth, and student achievement. However, test anxiety effects many students and prevents them from showing how much progress they have actually made. The No Child
Horace Mann, the father of the common school movement developed a test to administer a group of students in 1800s. These tests made judgments about how students were doing at their current level and to see if they are ready to move up to a higher one. Testing during this era focused on memorization and oral tests such as oral spelling tests. The idea was to give each student equal opportunity in life. Students would have no distinction between the rich and the poor. Horace Mann believes in the equalization of all students and citizens through education. But with all his hard work he did not make much progress. Spring disputes, “In the simplest terms, the common school never became common to all students” (Spring, 87.) Common school ideologies argued that everyone would receive standardized equal
The ETS created an increased importance of standardized testing in determining the status and income of Americans. In result of this new organization, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) is created. Standardized tests are used as an equalizer of opportunity. It is a tool of segregation that creates separate intelligence, socioeconomic status, wealth, and privilege. Spring argues, “Chauncey (President of ETS) hoped that the ETS would fulfill his dream by developing a series of multiple-choice mental tests that would determine everyone’s place in society. Though the ETS never developed a full range of mental tests to classify the American population, the SAT became a central gatekeeper for dividing the population by income and status” (Spring, pg 363.) TSAT tests are still administered for college entrance today. It is considered a step up from the IQ tests; they are supposed to only predict success rates in college. The ETS created a new idea of meritocracy based on testing. It was argued that the SAT continued to uphold the idea of everyone receiving an equal opportunity in college