On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States

By accepting this match, you agree to follow the process below: Round 1: Present Debate Cases Round 2: Recognize and attach opponent's arguments Round 3: Defend your case Round 4: Voters(Why you win) My partner and I negate today"s resolution and stand resolved, On balance, standardized testing is NOT beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. Obs 1: Even though the SAT and ACT are considered "Standardized Tests", not all students take them, so the Con will ignore any arguments made about them. Obs 2: If the Con can prove that there are more harms than benefits, it should be enough for the Con to win. Contention 1: Standardized Testing results in incomplete education A: Standardized testing alters school curriculum to the detriment of a well-rounded education Lisa Adams, Research Associate, Joseph Pedulla, Professor at Boston College, George Madaus, Professor at Boston College, 2003, Theory into practice, 42.1, p. 18-29 Quote "Much of the research on state testing programs addresses their effects on what is taught. A common finding is that teachers report giving greater attention to tested content areas. For example, of the Virginia survey by Myran & Workman(1999), more than 80% indicated that the state Standards of Learning (SOL) test had impacted their instruction, particularly with regard to the content focus of daily lessons. " B: Low-income and minority students are hurt the most by the emphasis on standardized test scores. "How Standardized Testing Damages Education (Updated July 2012). " FairTest. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, 28 Aug. 2007. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. <. http://fairtest.org...;. Quote"Students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds, English language learners, and students with disabilities, are more likely to be denied diplomas, retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or unnecessarily put in education programs. This ensures they will fall further and further behind their peers. Many drop out, some ending up in the "school-to-prison pipeline. " On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in "gifted and talented" or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly. "-Champ Briefs Pg. 147 MPK: Standardized testing can harm the well-rounded education curriculum teachers have been teaching. Standardized testing also hurts low-income and minority-group backgrounds and discriminates against them, creating even greater achievement gaps. Contention 2: Because of the limitations of standardized testing, it makes a poor measurement of actual learning. A: One size fits all just doesn"t work W. James Popham, Emeritus Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality. March 1999 | Volume 56 | Number 6 Using Standards and Assessments Pages 8-15. . http://www.ascd.org...'t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx Quote"At a very general level, the goals that educators pursue in different settings are reasonably similar. For instance, you can be sure that all schools will give attention to language arts, mathematics, and so on. But that's at a general level. At the level where it really makes a difference to instruction, in the classroom, there are significant differences in the educational objectives being sought. And that presents a problem to those who must sell standardized achievement tests. " B. Tests do not cover what is actually taught. James Popham continues. Quote"To illustrate the seriousness of the mismatch that can occur between what's taught locally and what's tested through standardized achievement tests, educators ought to know about an important study at Michigan State University reported in 1983 by Freeman. They concluded that between 50 and 80 percent of what was measured on the tests was not suitably addressed in the textbooks. The proportion of topics presented on a standardized test that received more than cursory treatment in each textbook was never higher than 50 percent. " MPK: Standardized testing does not cover much of what is taught by teachers, and are too limited. Therefore, such tests cannot accurately measure actual learning by students Contention 3: Standardized testing hurts teachers A:Teachers lose control of the curriculum. Segall, Avner. [Professor at Michigan State University]. "Teachers" Perceptions of the Impact of State-Mandated Standardized Testing: The Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) as a Case Study of Consequences. " Theory & Research in Social Education. 2003. Web. Accessed November 4, 2015. Quote "Exploring the relationship between teachers and standardized testing, and using the Michigan Evaluation Assessment Program (MEAP) and the discourses surrounding it as a case study of consequences, this study both combines findings from previous studies on teachers and testing and adds to them. Like McNeil"s (2000) study, it points out how standardized testing is not simply an evaluator of a curriculum but its creator. " B: Teachers lose control of both content and scope "How Standardized Tests Shape--and Limit--Student Learning. " National Council of Teachers of English. James R. Squire Office of Policy Research. 2014. Web. Accessed 8 November 2015. . http://www.ncte.org...- nov2014/CC0242PolicyStandardized. pdf Quote"Standardized tests narrow the entire curriculum in many schools, often squeezing out subjects such as music, art, foreign languages, and, especially in elementary grades, social studies, because they are not included in tests. For ELA teachers, these tests also lead to subject-specific narrowing. ELA teachers are required to focus their instruction on the literacy skills measured on standardized tests. Since reading is more prominent than writing in most tests, teachers spend more time on reading rather than writing, usually focusing on comprehension, not higher-order critical reading skills. " MPK: Standardized testing forces teachers to teach to a test instead of being allowed to facilitate learning in their preferred ways. This leads to teachers feeling inadequate and struggling to teach a curriculum they didn"t create. Conclusion: As my partner and I have proven, standardized testing is NOT beneficial to K-12 education. Standardized testing hurts minorities and low income students, and it does not cover what is taught, which causes teaching to the test.