Standardized Testing

Thesis statement: Standardized tests in the public school system have become biased and they are becoming costly to the school systems. Introduction: According to Dr. Hoffman, it is the multiple-choice format that is to blame. “Multiple choice tests penalize the deep student, dampen creativity, foster intellectual dishonesty, and undermine the very foundations of education” he remarked in a 1977 interview. A standardized test is a test that uses uniform procedures for administration and scoring in order to assure that the results from different people are comparable. Standardized tests have been used since 1965 to do this. There have been many debates on the pros and cons of standardized tests for years. Testing in the schools has swelled and mutated and threatens to swallow our school systems whole. Standardized tests in the public school system have become biased and they are costly to school systems. In this presentation I will go over some of the cons of standardized testing. One is that the tests given to our students today are biased to our children that certain questions can only be answered by particular groups of students. The second con of standardized testing is that these tests have become costly to our schools and the test scores affect certain schools funding. I. Standardized tests in today’s public school system are biased. A. Standardized tests include questions that are more likely to be answered correctly by students who come from privileged backgrounds (Pollard, 1999-2000). i. For decades, critics have demonstrated that many standardized test are biased because their questions tap a set of knowledge and skills more likely to be possessed by children from a privileged background (Kohn, 2000). ii. Children who come from affluent families, have educated parents, attend quality daycare or preschool programs, own computers, travel, or attend cultural events are far more likely than less affluent children to possess such outside

References: Carter, C. (n.d.). The Case Against Standardized Test. Retrieved from http://testcritic.homestead.com/files/standardized_test.html Kohn, A. (2000, September 27). Standardized Testing And Its Victims. Retrieved from http://alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm National Center For Education Statistics. Mathematics Achievement Gaps. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2010/section2/table-mgp-3asp Pollard, J. (1999-2000). Poor Teaching for Poor Kids. Retrieved from http://www.standardizedtesting.net/teaching.htm