In the United States, beginning in third grade, students are required by law to take standardized tests. Tests such as Illinois Standard Achievement Tests and the ACT ask multiple-choice questions where only one answer is correct. Is this form of evaluation testing memorization and good test taking skills or actual knowledge that the student has gained from the school? Are teachers being forced to teach only what the state says is important?
Students who speak other languages such as Spanish are also forced to take the standardized tests in English. Students coming from households where English is not the spoken language do not begin learning English until third grade, the same year they must start taking the ISAT or some other test. Schools are funded based on how well their students perform, but if the students in the school do not read English well enough to be able to read the questions, how can they possibly be successful at taking the tests? Since the students cannot even read the test questions, why should they even attempt to answer the questions? Should the tests be offered in other languages? Is there another way that student progress could be monitored other than taking standard achievement tests? Do you think these tests really measure academic achievement? What comments do you have about standardized testing in general?
Morgan R. (11:00)
18 comments:
children that come to this country not speakin english already faces many chanlleges.it would be unfair in my opinion to force a child with no english or poor english into taking a test in eglish. my solution would be to tranlates or get the child individual help
dea shanay
I have a very strong opinion on this topic. I don't feel like if funding is based on how students perform during tests, then the tests should be user friendly to everyone. Students with disabilities should have tests that fit their needs, and students that don't speak english should have tests in other languages available to them. The fact that everyone learns and performs differently on tests is bad enough. At least make the testing possible for everyone.
Allison P
I think standardized testing should be offered in different languages. Not everyone in the U.S.A. knows how to speak english or have a strong english background. More than likely the people that have problems speaking or reading english are not at a standard level. They should should be able to the standardized test in the language they are most comfertable with, or not have to take the test until they are at the same level as everyone else in the class.
Another problem with standardized testing is that they make the test so long and boring that most people cant stay focused on them. By the time the students finish the test they dont care what kind of grade they get, they just want to be done with the test. I believe there should be a better way to test the knowledge of the students without making them take a test for four hours.
Alex K (11:00)
The teacher are being told by the state what to teach in the classrooms. Most of what is being teached in high school is stuff that you will use in some time period in a people life. I do feel that if a child doesn't speak mainly English then the test should be offered in a different language. I feel that the academic testing doesn't measure achievement of student because, I have never done good on quiz, test, or exams but I always make good grades in the classroom.
Tavaruss
I have often wondered the same thing about standardized testing. I always thought it counterproductive to require students from diverse educational backgrounds to take state administered tests just so the school can remain funded. Furthermore, I think those test only evaluate a students memory rather than actual knowledge the student has gained. It makes no sense to administer these types of exams especially in a environment where the language of the test is not understood by the person taking it. If they are going to continue to require these tests be taken the least that they could do as a courtesy is offer it in other languages. Student progress can be monitored by group/individual discussion. If a instructor wants to know evaluate a students progress he/she could give a assignment to the student to take home, work on, finish, and bring back to school. The instructor can then look at the quality of work performed and if the student understood what was asked on the assigment. At the end of the term to truly evaluate whether or not a student grasped the understanding of the course could be easily determined (and with less pressure) by discussing the things learned over the course of the semester/year. Standardized testing does not measure academic achievement. Being forced to go home and cram everything that you learned throughout the course (memorize it) and put it on paper is no way to evaluate student understanding and progress. Standardized testing should be done away with in my opinion.
Eldrige (11:00)
Just becuase a student comes to the US from a different country and speak a different language doesnt mean they will fail the ACT or SAT. In fact a freind of mine came to college here in the US from India. His ACT score was around 30. He knew little to know english. As far as predicting academic potential through a series of tests that progress from 3rd grade to high school is just meaningless. most students dont develop academic potential until they are in High school and for others they dont get the interest to go to school until after the graduate high school. It all depends on what the person/student wants to do. the standardize tests are just progress markers but they dont deteremine academic potential.
Rocky V.
if the standardized tests must be done, then i agree they should be multi-lingual. in my opinion, however, i don't think they should administer them. i agree with the others' comments in that the tests don't measure academic progress. i think if the people who mandate these tests for funding purposes really have to know how the students progress, they should take the averages of their grades on homework, quizzes, and tests throughout the school year. that is where you will get the most answers to how well a student is progressing.
mgd
I agree with the comment of taking scores from work done in school. Standardized testing is not accurate in my opinion, the test are way too long to hold a students attention, so the reality is a lot of students just guess or make pictures with the dots. If testing is to continue it should be in the language the student understands.
Peg B. (1:00)
I agree with all the statements above. I believe that if a student has a disability or speaks a different language they should be given a test they can understand and do well on, instead of them having to take the same test everyone else has to. I also don't think that standardized testing should start at such a young age, third grade is really early to start bombarding them with test like that.I think that standardized testing should start at least in middle school. I understand that the younger the students are the more they can absorb,but teachers don't teach what the ACT tests for in the 3rd grade and Im pretty sure they don't learn anything! At least in middle school they have a chance to actually learn things. And hopefully teachers will be able to go over some of the material on the ACT and ISAT better and more thoroughly.
~Lauren (11:00)
I think that standard achievement tests is not a good method of determing the knowledge of a school. I do not believe that this method is a good test because people test differently. Using scores of a multiple choice test is not accurate. Many people get the answer "correct" because they guessed. Also special needs kids have to take the test. It can be very frustrating for someone who can not function well on their own to take the ACT.
I agree that the state does need to do test that sees how the school is doing on their education. The way that it is administered could be changed quite a bit. It would help to break up the test in to multiple short tests that would allow the students to focus on the test and maybe even stay interested in them. They also should be a little more accommodating towards people with disabilities and may even be offered in different languages.
Clayton B. (11:00)
I feel the government should absolutely make us learn what the state says important because if they didn't have standards then all the lazy people out there which are a lot wouldn't take the important classes like math, science, english, and so on. they would only take easy classes that wouldn't broaded there education. The standardized tests do have there flaws just like everything else but i feel are necessary to find out if the teachers are doing there job, and what schools are better than the others. If kids come from a household where english isn't the main language and they don't know english then they shouldn't have come to america where they woulld know they would have to learn to write, read and speak english. I'm sure if we went to other countries where they don't speak english, they aren't going to have special treatment for you because your in there country, so you speak the countries language. Therefore the tests should absolutely not be specialized for foreign students to take the test in there language.The only problem i have with the tests is the ACT and SAT scores because some kids that do well in school and have a high gpa don't do well on those tests sometimes, and vice versa. All colleges care about, mostly is the SAT and ACT scores. So do well on those tests and you usually get into a better school. Thats's the only issue I see with school standardized testing.
-jake rone-
I think that this test should not put you in a catagory just because of your score, I got a average grad on it but when i got to college I got streight As on my first year here and thats not average, so I feel that this should not be used as a tool to determine were a kid should be placed.
tyler farmer (11:00)
If the funding is based on the standardized testing I feel it's a bad idea. I feel it could be a form of testing students, but such great funding could be decided based on attendance or demographics or a number of other things. I don't feel its an accurate account because children have so many different learning styles. Also I think they should offer them in different languages, just because a foreign person score low on the test doesn't mean they are not capable of the work, it's simply a disadvantage due to language barrier. The school system should realize the funding would go up if it was done that way.
R Hall
I believe the standardized test do not evaluate the students knowledge but instead memorization and the ability to make educated guesses. I think the state should rather focus on how well students do in actually classes and base funding on those statistics rather than the standardized tests. Also i think the test should be offered in different languages for those students who's first language is not English. I do think this is a very big problem with the education system and i think more effort should be put into evaluating students rather than just basing education levels on some test scores.
Brett Scott (11:00)
I believe that tests being taken in English is a completely reasonable idea. They are in a country in which people predominantly speak English. When they seek employment later in life, speaking English will be a great skill to have. If they know that they will have to take the tests, it gives them plenty of time to learn the necessary things. I am in support of the idea, but I don't think that school funding should be based on it. This issue is many sided, but overall I am in favor of it.
Landon W 11:00
They should be given the test in a their native language. But they should be given like 3 years for their own language tests. Because they should know the language a little bit, from ESL, etc.
Daniel (1:00)
I feel like there's no right way to do standardized testing. Honestly, they are in America, they shouldn't get special treatment. Yet at the same time, they could be lacking in the English language and it is not fair to those who do not understand it as well. I don't think standard achievement tests mean anything. They do not measure any achievement. All they measure is how well we can take a test within a certain amount of time.
Jenny (11:00)
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