Standardized Testing In Public Schools

Not only students feel the wrath of standardized testing, throughout the country many schools are forced to give these tests. If not given schools can lose their funding. If the schools cut the standardized testing, many teachers would lose their job, due to funding being cut by the state and the national government. If the national government decided to not require schools to give the ACT or SAT, and the money was instead,“... put toward teacher raises, the report estimates that each teacher in the country would receive, on average, a raise of $550, or 1 percent”(Ujifusa). This would hugely benefit the many hard worker teachers across the country, since many teachers are underpaid in most of the school districts around the country. This is one of the largest reasons standardized testing can be cut by the schools themselves, the public schools need funding to stay up right and running. There are ways public schools, and colleges can fix this problem. One of the ways is universities take the ACT or SAT off of their college applications, and add different ways to tell if a student is college ready, or is admissible into their school. Schools can consider more essays, and interview options to see if a student is admissible into the school. Many schools, “.. consider an applicant’s ability to present themselves in essays and interviews, review their recommendations from mentors, and assess factors such as their community engagement and entrepreneurism”(Lash). This overall, helps them get a better understanding for the student, and this is something the ACT or SAT does not test on. This also for the student, will make them less stressed about a low ACT or SAT score, and can really focus on the interviews and their academics.A private university, named …show more content…
Hopefully, they would make the standardized tests optional, and available for any students at any time. Due to students having the option to take these standardized tests , they would be less stressed and have more time to learn and focus on their studies. Throughout the school year, “Some schools allocate more than a quarter of the year's instruction to test prep. [Kozol] After New York City's reading and math scores plunged in 2010, many schools imposed extra measures to avoid being shut down, including daily two and a half hour prep sessions and test practice on vacation days”(Standardized Test). Students also have many of there learning days taken away, causing them to learn something they don't want to learn at all. This also is not benefiting the teachers at all, teachers are teaching subjects, they don't want to teach, and that they didn't go to college. If schools stopped requiring students to take these tests, students can learn the things they wanted to learn, and teachers could also teach the things they spent thousands of dollars to learn in college. Sadly, this solution will not work due to, schools can lose their government funding. Many of these public schools, need that funding to pay their teachers, administrators, and custodians. If the schools stop giving these standardized tests, the schools would have to cut many employees. This would not be ideal for them, because being understaffed for a certain amount of students, is dangerous, and not fair to taxpayers. Therefore, this solution will not work, but it can be tried again with more