Why Is Standardized Testing Ineffective

Imagine something that makes hundreds- no, thousands- of people miserable each year. Something that wastes billions of dollars. Something that decides the future of a child in one day. Sadly, such a thing exists. It is called standardized testing. Not only is it ineffective, it also hurts many different people in many different ways. First of all, it hurts students and parents. It also hurts teachers and even the government. The researchers and data analytists at the SEEALL University have looked at all the files and all the facts, and they have concluded that testing is a hot-and important- topic. Their findings can change people’s lives. This is important. But, in the end, this analyst thinks that when you look at all of the facts, it is
Testing hurts the government because the government spends billions of dollars EACH YEAR printing, writing, and administering the test. The first standardized test was administered in 1878. Standardized testing costs 1.7 billion dollars per year. Do the math. If you calculate it correctly, you should get 234.6. That number represents all the money that the government has spent on standardized testing since the first standardized test was administered in 1878, 138 years ago. It’s pretty clear how this hurts the government- without all this money, the government has less money to spend on things that are actually important- like the army, shelters for the homeless, paying firemen and police officers and social security. Sadly, this is not even the full extent of the harm that testing inflicts. Other victims of testing are teachers. For example, teachers are heavily based on how their students do on the test. But, again, sadly, the circumstances are not the same for everyone, and the tests do not take this into consideration. However, if some students in a class simply get nervous on tests and as a result they naturally don’t do well, it is not only the student and the parents that suffer, but now it is also the teacher, because the teacher is evaluated on how well the student does on the test. If enough students do poorly on the test, the teacher might get fired. But here’s the killer: it’s possible that it was not the teacher’s fault. For example, if a student’s parents do not have the money to afford a tutor, then the student has no edge over everyone else in the state, and there is a better chance that the student will get a bad grade. Then not only will the student will suffer, but the teacher of that student will suffer as well. These are all the ways that ineffective testing hurts people of all ages and