Standardized testing/ I am against standardized testing.

Standardized testing takes too much time away from students learning the curriculum that
is necessary to benefit them later on in life. Apart from taking time away from the standard
curriculum, students experience more stress. Standardized testing should not determine a
student’s intelligence. Not only does the standardized test take an emotional toll on students, but
it emotionally affects teachers as well.
Standardized testing was introduced to Boston schools during the 1800s by school
reformers Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe. The test was introduced to the school system
to provide a “single standard by which to judge and compare the output of each school” and to
be able to determine how well the teacher has taught their students. Concerns grew about all the
testing that students had to face, and the New York State Department of Education spoke up and
said, “it is a very great and more serious evil to sacrifice systematic instruction and a
comprehensive view of the subject for the scrappy and unrelated knowledge gained by students
who are persistently drilled in the mere answering of questions issued by the Education
Department or other governing bodies.” Students are teachers were made to focus on curriculum
that might not benefit a student in their life or the career of their choosing, instead of focusing
on a curriculum that would benefit a student to achieve what they would like to.
Test-taking became popular in the school systems because it was supposed to “raise
standards and make education more equitable.” So much pressure is being put on teachers and
students to do well on the standardized test because this will show how well a student is retaining
information from what the teacher is teaching. The test is supposed to determine where the gap is
in the curriculum and what resources students and teachers need to obtain better grades during
test-taking. Many factors are not being taken into consideration, like the living condition of a
student, does the student have the resources to pass, does the student have a job, does the student
have a hard time test-taking? Students can have top-notch grades and still not be the best at test-
taking. How can we punish students and teachers for students not passing this standardized test?
The Department of Education should not look at the numbers of a test; they should look at the