Issues With Standardized Testing

The amount of issues with standardized testing is astounding. One big issue that has gotten out of control in the past years is the excessive use of testing. Rizga stated, “A child entering prekindergarten today will take, on average, 113 standardized assessments by the time he or she graduates from public school.” (40). Between grades 3 to 8, public school students take about 10 to 20 standardized tests per year (Rizga, 40). In America, students attending public schools take more standardized tests than others in any other “industrialized” country (Rizga, 40). Urban students spend far more time on district-mandated tests than their suburban counterparts (Rizga, 41). To be exact, a recent study demonstrated that urban high school students spend
Teachers are under constant pressure from district administrators and schools. The RTT initiative promotes hiring, firing, and compensating teachers by using test scores (Rizga, 41). Currently, teacher evaluations that use test scores are required in 35 states (Rizga, 31). For example, end-of-course tests had been used in Florida to reward some teachers and punish others up until 2015 (Rizga, 41). As said by the National Education Association (NEA), “NCLB has moved its focus away from student learning toward mandated testing and has created a culture of high-stakes testing whereby too many teachers are evaluated based on student’s test scores” (“Excessive High-Stakes” 1). In a 2013 phone survey made by the NEA, data was collected from 1500 PK-12 teachers to understand their feelings about standardized testing and its influence on their work (“Excessive High-Stakes” 1). Teachers reported that they spent 54 school days out of their overall work time on tasks related to testing (“Excessive High-Stakes” 1). Because teachers spend a crucial amount of time of their instructional time on test related tasks, the curriculum is narrowed (“Excessive High Stakes” 1). Nearly three quarters of teachers reported feeling pressure from district administrators and schools to improve student test scores (“Excessive High Stakes” 1). The demand for teachers to prepare students for testing and the overwhelming pressure
Poor schools receive less funding than richer schools. While testing’s original movement was to level the educational playing field, the per student funding gap between rich and poor schools nationwide has grown 44 percent—even as the number of needy students has grown in the last decade (Rizga, 41). Rizga further explained how the achievement gap between the poor and the rich has only grown by stating this:
When it comes to standardized testing, this means that schools that educate low-income students start out at a disadvantage. They are more likely to have lower-paid and less-qualified teachers; lack college preparatory classes, books, and supplies… when their students don’t make it to the same “proficiency” benchmarks on yearly tests as their wealthier counterparts, politicians label them and their teachers as “failing.” (Rizga,