In recent years, standardized tests have become the basis for learning standards. Lesson plans and school activities tend to be built around what will be on standardized tests that year, leaving little room for teachers to come up with creative activities. This has caused concern for teachers, students and parents across the country. Although standardized testing is intended to help school systems set national or state standards, it appears to do the opposite. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The testing craze caught fire with the No Child Left Behind Act signed by George W. Bush in 2002 (Klein). Alyson Klein discusses the reasons behind the act, what the act requires, and the criticisms associated with it in her article "No Child Left Behind: An Overview" published in 2015 in Education Newsweek. Klein begins her article with an introduction about the law and stating that the No Child Left Behind Act was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, but she does not go into detail about what the Every Student Succeeds Act is, which is confused. He then explains the Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, which was the first act that truly gave the federal government a role in public education. Since then, several laws have sought to expand the federal government's role in public education, which was accomplished with the No Child Left Behind Act. Klein states that the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law because, "out of concern that the American education system was no longer internationally competitive” (Klein). This new act was created to ensure that students receive the education they need to succeed. From this definition, Klein lists what states and schools must do under this law because if states did not comply, they would not receive any federal funding In simple terms, schools must test students on certain subjects in an effort to get them to AYP or adequate yearly progress (Klein). If they fail to achieve this AYP for multiple years in a row, then there will be a variety of consequences as small as offering free tutoring, to as large as school closure or state takeover (Klein). From this, criticisms of the law have emerged, including: schools rely too much on standardized tests, the law does not have enough funding, and not much has changed in lower-quality schools. In response, the Obama administration attempted to resolve these problems by having states adopt common core standards or by having an institution of higher education, such as a university, sign off that their courses are good enough. Although Klein's article is organized and clear, there are still questions left unanswered. For example, he does not go into the effects of changes made by the Obama administration, or details about the Every Student Succeeds Act. However, Klein uses an abundance of reliable sources, including the actual text of the No Child Left Behind Act. Furthermore, his use of a timeline helps readers better understand the events he mentions. Where Klein simply explains the legislation involved in standardized tests, Kimberly O'Malley describes why standardized tests are used and the steps on how the test itself is performed. made in his research article “Standardized tests. What is it and how does it work?” The blog post was written in 2012 for Pearson, a company that produces standardized tests, however, since then, O'Malley has become senior vice president ofResearch Triangle Institute International Education and Workforce Development, which gives it credibility on the topic of standardized testing. testing.O'Malley begins the article by explaining which tests are administered to which age group and that each state develops its own tests. Then list the steps on how the tests are performed. Each state adopts learning standards and test questions are developed from them. The test questions themselves are usually created by teachers and a lot of time is spent on providing the "wrong answers" because "wrong answers can actually tell us a lot about what students have misunderstood", which is interesting (O'Malley). The questions are then reviewed and sent for field testing, where students answer them, and based on the results, test developers can determine whether it is a good question or a bad question. Finally, the actual test is taken and students take it. O'Malley doesn't outright say she is one of the people creating the test, but her use of "we" in the article hints at the fact that she IS. Additionally, since Pearson is one of the companies that creates the test, it is safe to say that the information listed is accurate. It's interesting that you mention teachers as the ones who formulate the test questions because growing up I heard countless moans and complaints coming from my teachers about standardized test questions. However, O'Malley points out that these tests take years to develop before they are given to students. With O'Malley's seemingly effective way of formulating standardized tests, it is easy to assume that standardized tests are useful, which is what Dr. Gail Gross focuses on in her article “The Value of Standardized Tests.” His article, while purely opinionated, focuses on issues surrounding curriculum and education parity between states and improving teaching methods. The argument for curriculum and instructional parity among states involves the idea that standardized testing ensures that each school district teaches what it should and that students learn what it should. Fundamentally, standardized tests are a basis for what schools should teach. These tests are not biased and are honest about students' abilities, so schools cannot manipulate scores. With the information provided by the scores, teachers can then adjust their teaching methods if their students are not doing well. Additionally, Gross provides advice on how to improve standardized tests. One piece of advice he gives is that standardized tests should be biannual (gross). Therefore, students who did not perform well in the first test can receive additional help in their problem areas, which would help not only them, but also the teacher and his teaching methods. He also recommends teachers not stress students or inspire them to cheat, which seems obvious, but easier said than done. His final piece of advice is that it's okay for teachers to teach to a test because it's beneficial to students. He doesn't go into detail on this topic, which would have been helpful. Gross states at the beginning of the article his credentials as a teacher with a doctorate in education and a Ph.D. in psychology. Perhaps this experience gives meaning to his claims, but it would have been helpful if he had had sources to back him up. His arguments don't go into much detail, which would have been very helpful in not only helping readers understand, but also convincing them. When Gross stated his credentials, he also said that he had spent a fair amount of time studying how children learn,which might have been a good argument. He could use his research to demonstrate that standardized testing improves students' intelligence, or somehow use his experience to demonstrate that learning and standardized testing have a positive correlation, but he doesn't. This also makes me question his arguments because with his Ph.D. he would need some sort of research to support his arguments. In contrast, the article “How Standardized Tests Shape- and Limit- Student Learning” written by Anne Ruggles Gere discusses the negative effects that standardized tests have on student learning. This article includes three topics: Standardized testing is: Changing the way teachers teach, Changing and narrowing the curriculum, Limiting student learning. The argument that the way standardized testing is changing the way teachers teach pushes the idea of ​​teachers doing their traditional job, plus a little more. These additional duties include teaching more during the test, grouping students based on learning ability, and conducting remedial activities for students who fail tests. These tasks are time-consuming, and because of them, teachers “lose between 60 and 110 hours of teaching in a year,” which adds up considering how much time students spend in the classroom (Gere). Furthermore, teachers are not given the freedom to teach their own curriculum because they now have to teach according to the test curriculum. The second topic focuses on curriculum narrowing. Often, schools carve out the arts to focus more on language arts, math and other subjects on which students are tested. An interesting factor in this argument is that schools focus more on reading than writing because reading is emphasized on tests. Furthermore, when schools teach writing, the teaching is limited. Because writing tests are graded by computer, the grade simply reflects sentence structure and mechanics rather than substance and ideas. The third argument that standardized testing limits student learning is closely related to curriculum narrowing. Since teachers have to focus on teaching for the test, they don't have enough time to teach other valuable lessons like people skills and other social qualities. To demonstrate this, this article used research that showed that GED students have approximately the same standardized test scores as high school graduates, however, high school graduates are more successful due to their social skills and ability to solve problems, which are learned in a training context. school context (Gere). Standardized tests also limit student learning because they focus on core subjects like language arts and math rather than subjects a student might be good at. For example, a student who wants to become a writer probably won't score as high on a math test as a student who wants to become an engineer. If a student wants to become an artist, they are probably wondering why they need to take these tests, since these tests are not applicable to everything they are interested in. Overall, this article had its arguments perfectly set and was supported by a lot of research. The arguments are compelling in themselves, and the article was written by the National Council of Teachers of English. Therefore, the authors have first-hand experience.