¶ … articles on high-stakes testing. Specifically, it will review the three articles, and include how the articles changed my personal views on high-stakes testing. Clearly, testing is a necessity in the educational environment, and yet, many forms of testing seem to be more a form of control and labeling rather than a way to accurately measure the student's expected and actual learning outcomes. High-stakes testing may help reinforce the school district's learning standards and outcomes, but it may not be the method most effective in measuring the child's development and learning potential. What is the purpose of educational testing? Ostensibly, it exists to measure a student's progress throughout the school year, but it can also be a measure of the educator and district's success in passing on information from educator to learner. Most parents and professionals want some measure of proof that their children are receiving a quality education that can carry them into the future, and testing helps assess and prove these educational goals. However, often so much importance is placed on test results, that often the student and their needs are overlooked in the process. The introduction of so called "high-stakes" testing to determine if a child should move on to the next grade or graduate has come under fire from many critics for a number of reasons, including the accuracy of the tests themselves, and their ability to correctly measure a student's educational progress. In addition, many critics questioned whether one, high-stakes test could really begin to measure both teacher and student success. In fact, some students...
Some excellent students may falter for a number of reasons on any given testing day, while others may shine, simply because they have mastered the mystery of test-taking, rather than the actual material covered.
Recognition of quality and lack there of should be a basic goal of the education system, as it strives to direct resources and change situations that are not meeting the demands of accountability, yet it is clear that High Stakes testing does a poor job identifying good schools and good teachers as it ignored, by default important information that is not available on the test scores. It has been clear
7). Although "one would expect higher quality assessment instruments that produce better information to make education decisions given NCLB-imposed penalties for districts associated with poor performance on the test...many states struggle with budget deficits and funding restrictions. They cannot allocate the funds necessary to improve the testing programs. States are forced to rely on large-scale assessments with too few questions and a narrow focus on skills and knowledge that are
Thus, students faced with fear and stress, are overwhelmed, concentrating on the test rather than on the goals of learning. They cannot concentrate on school work, understanding the importance of learning and education, because of stress that forces some to focus only on the test and others to drop out. III. High stakes testing disadvantages those with learning disabilities. In addition to lowering the teaching capacity of some teachers and students'
"Schools will not be able to attract high-quality teachers to a system that stifles richness and creativity and emphasizes a narrow band of knowledge and a very restricted set of tests to measure it." Consequently, struggling schools will get worse as teachers move to more affluent public or private schools to teach. The students will suffer the consequences of inadequate instruction the most. In the end, High Stakes Testing does
Because of this, students who had disabilities, low language proficiency, and who come from various ethnic backgrounds are viewed as such during the grading process. In addition, these kinds of assessments allow professors to not only assess whether the students have learned the subject matter, but also whether or not they have the skills to proceed in the academic realm. According to the Ohio Department of Education (n.d.), there
High stakes testing is a concept of using assessments to make major decisions about students and to hold schools accountable. In the U.S. high stakes testing is part of a standardization process that sees students being assessed to evaluate progress; the tests not only impact whether a student will advance but also whether the school will receive incentives from the government. Because incentives are tied to achievement and the high
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