Test Score
Don’t Judge a Student by a Test Score
Introduction
Students sit in humid, cramped classrooms, wrack their brains for answers, and complete sections of a test in the allotted amount of time for one thing that will define them: a number score. In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that requires schools to administer standardized tests to students in order to determine if the school is meeting state education standards (Rettner, 2011). However, these standardized tests do not accurately represent student achievements. Students can suffer from test anxiety, and tests do not consider non-cognitive skills (skills not relating to the process of acquiring knowledge). Also, schools place too much pressure on standardized …show more content…
Standardized assessments have baselines and standards that are the same on every test for every student. However, having someone observe the classrooms can lead to bias as rating the quality of the teacher would be different from one observer to the next. There are no set of standards available to electronically score the classrooms like there are for standardized tests. Therefore, it would be nearly impossible to observe, score, and compare instruction without a standard …show more content…
A high score proves that a school is meeting standards; however, a low score means that the educational system needs improvement. But, schools should not rely on this score to define the caliber of the education provided. Students learn strengths besides multiplication, how to write a poem, and what a cell consists of. However, they grasp the concept of teamwork, communication, responsibility, drive, and motivation. Now, test results can be flawed by test anxiety, and students should be informed on how to cope with these stressors. However, this is not a long term solution that will help schools improve. Also, students cannot engage in deeper learning when teachers are “teaching to the test”. Reducing the amount of tests administered would allow for classes to thrive again, but impede the schools from meeting standards. Finally, a long term solution would be to mimic the PISA test and apply a questionnaire that analyzes the development of life skills. With this solution, schools would be able to measure the needed requirements while also gaining needed information to nurture noncognitive maturation in students throughout their elementary, middle, and high school careers. Instead of having schools be mere test preparation factories, they need to engage students in learning and instill the skills needed to thrive after
Introduction
Students sit in humid, cramped classrooms, wrack their brains for answers, and complete sections of a test in the allotted amount of time for one thing that will define them: a number score. In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that requires schools to administer standardized tests to students in order to determine if the school is meeting state education standards (Rettner, 2011). However, these standardized tests do not accurately represent student achievements. Students can suffer from test anxiety, and tests do not consider non-cognitive skills (skills not relating to the process of acquiring knowledge). Also, schools place too much pressure on standardized …show more content…
Standardized assessments have baselines and standards that are the same on every test for every student. However, having someone observe the classrooms can lead to bias as rating the quality of the teacher would be different from one observer to the next. There are no set of standards available to electronically score the classrooms like there are for standardized tests. Therefore, it would be nearly impossible to observe, score, and compare instruction without a standard …show more content…
A high score proves that a school is meeting standards; however, a low score means that the educational system needs improvement. But, schools should not rely on this score to define the caliber of the education provided. Students learn strengths besides multiplication, how to write a poem, and what a cell consists of. However, they grasp the concept of teamwork, communication, responsibility, drive, and motivation. Now, test results can be flawed by test anxiety, and students should be informed on how to cope with these stressors. However, this is not a long term solution that will help schools improve. Also, students cannot engage in deeper learning when teachers are “teaching to the test”. Reducing the amount of tests administered would allow for classes to thrive again, but impede the schools from meeting standards. Finally, a long term solution would be to mimic the PISA test and apply a questionnaire that analyzes the development of life skills. With this solution, schools would be able to measure the needed requirements while also gaining needed information to nurture noncognitive maturation in students throughout their elementary, middle, and high school careers. Instead of having schools be mere test preparation factories, they need to engage students in learning and instill the skills needed to thrive after