Based on my own experiences throughout high school there were many problems that I saw in my school and others. One problem that I think had the most impact on my educational career was the amount of standardized tests given. It seemed to me that all the schools, teachers, and students were all focused on preparing for the standardized tests; such as SAT’s or the Regents in New York State, and not focusing on the art of learning, creativity and so on. I learned that these standardized tests are increasingly being used to determine not oly whether students get diplomas bu also whether the school gets funding and teachers get raises—not to mention whether students will spend their upcoming vacation sunning on the beach or sweating out summer school.
Over the years, psychometricians (professional test preparers) have learned a lot about how to create standardized tests that truly measure the knowledge and skills they claim they are measuring. In other words these tests are valid. These standardized tests are also reliable. This implies for example, that the same person taking a different form of the test will tend to make close to
Since there are standardized tests in just about every subject in high school, a student could have up to 5 at the end of the year. The students spend so much time studying and preparing for the tests that the students become more about numbers than ideas, knowledge, and how to think or apply what they learn. The problem is obviously affecting the students in our schools today. The students focus all their time and energy into preparing for these tests, so the actual reason behind learning is forgotten. All the students care about is the grade they receive on the tests, and nothing else matters.
This problem concerns me because the institution of learning is being standardized. Kids don’t care about the thoughts and events that they learn in school, they care about what grade they get on the tests. The exact purpose of learning is being diminished for the fact that the motivation for learning is only driven by these standardized tests and finding quick answers to get a good grade. “Teaching to the test” sucks much creativity out of the classroom, and robs students of enrichment and in-depth exploration of ideas. When a
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