Appropriate Use Of Standardized Testing In Public Schools

As a kid who grew up in public schools, I grew up regularly having standardized tests. At the time I did not know what these tests were for, to be honest I was kind of confused; it seemed like these tests were just like any other tests we had taken in school for math or reading but as I found out later in my school career, these tests were not like other tests and did not have the same purposes as a regular academic test used to measure our knowledge. The impetus for standardized testing started in the 19th century and has continued on until today, Standardized Testing has increased more and more as well as the misuse of test scores, increased tensions in education, to the detriment of children and teachers. Standardized Testing in today’s society is an important topic because most schools require these state tests and the fact that these standardized
One of the drawbacks that standardized testing has is the misuse of the tests itself in many different ways, which affects students and teachers. For example, James Popham, an Emeritus Professor In the UCLA Graduate School and Information Studies, Examines the many misuses of Standardized Tests today. He states, ““A third inappropriate use of standardized tests arises when teachers try to use results of such tests to grade students.” (par. 21). Using these tests results as a way to grade students is inappropriate, affecting the students the most with these actions, degrade and confuse students as these standards do not match up with state curriculum. As these tests do not match up with state standards, standardized testing does not help our education system because these tests do not help students learn and understand the curriculum of their state. The most these tests do is confuse and introduce new topics to students that haven't even been taught in the classroom. Also, In this article by James Popham discussing the Uses and Misuses of these Standardized Tests, Using these tests to make classroom