Standardized Tests

As a person, who has lived through the standardized testing era first hand, I would like to refute the following points heavenly panda has made in support of standardized testing. 1. " Having standardized tests, would not only make students have to do well but also teachers." Define, "Doing well" I mean, having standardized tests, does increase the pressure for students and teachers to do well, however the question is, what does it pressure them to do well on? The answer to this question is standardized tests. Growing up in the standardized test era, Most of my teachers spent the majority of their time teaching their students how to do well on standardized tests. We were taught ways to eliminate answers on the multiple choice questions, in addition to this, teachers also dumbed down their curriculum, so they would have more time teaching students how to pass the standardized tests. Students also were trained to believe that every question only has one correct answer. Any student who dared to suggest otherwise, was shot down and told that whatever the test says is the correct answer. Even when the occasional error was found on the standardized tests, Students had no method of recourse when this happened and were not allowed to challenge the validness of the test's answer. This would not be the case in the working world( Ex. The existence of the Human Resources Department.) For anyone who is reading this argument, it is now clear how problematic standardized tests are. In the working world, students will not have answer choices of A. B. C. D. or E. with only one of these answers being correct. Students will need to come up with their own answers, and understand that no answer is necessarily correct above all else. Each possible answer a person comes up with has its benefits, in addition to having its downsides. For students to succeed they will need to be able to create their own answers, and be able to weigh out the pro's and cons of each to determine which one is the best..Creating finding, and picking a correct answer is only of secondary importance as many answers could be correct, however, what employers want the most for their employees is to come up with the best possible solution to problems, not just a correct one. Lets move on to point to your second point. 2. If marks went public, students and teachers would do better. Yep, they would do better.... on standardized tests! *See rebuttal to point one. OAK P.S. We already have standardized testing in elementary, middle school and high school. I know this because I lived through it and my younger sister is living through it now. Even with the existence of standardized testing teachers still could not fail their students. The ones who tried to were yelled at and belittled if they felt a student should be held back. Plus, quite a few schools already are public with regard to the schools test scores. Its the fact that these school's mark's are public, that teachers are yelled at for trying to fail students who aren't ready to enter the next grade level. It looks bad for the school and teachers if a student fails, even if the student failed because he/she refused to pay attention and ditched every other class. Schools and teachers are scared to fail students because the school could lose its funding, and teachers could lose there job if they do. Years ago, it was the fault of the student if they failed a class, now the teacher is blamed for failing a student who made no effort to learn the material.