Nationwide standard testing causes more problems than solutions

As university students, we’re no strangers to standardized testing. In order to graduate from high school, we needed to take exams to measure our proficiency. As potential college students, we needed to take an exam to determine if we were viable candidates for acceptance into various institutions. We cursed the weeks of studying during these periods of preparation. But it is no longer just students who suffer; now teachers are beginning to struggle with standardized tests and the time they sacrifice to prepare for them.

As a simple example, a twenty year teaching veteran in Massachusetts has resigned from her position in a Cambridge Public School after she felt she could no longer continue to teach under the school’s emphasis for standardized testing.

In the Today.com article “Teacher quits over emphasis on standardized tests: ‘It takes the joy out of learning,’” Susan Sluyter, the teacher in question, stated that the joy she had experienced in teaching had been taken away as she was forced to sacrifice precious learning time to prepare students for exams.

“I have seen my career transformed into a job that no longer fits my understanding of how children learn and what a teacher ought to do in the classroom to build a healthy, safe, developmentally appropriate environment for learning,” Sluyter said.

Sluyter is concerned that students are not receiving the appropriate attention they need to succeed. Instead of giving each student the help they require, they are directed towards pre-packaged learning that oftentimes does not account for their academic needs.

In 2002, former U.S. president George W. Bush signed into law the “No Child Left Behind” act, which changed teaching methods nationwide. While at first seen as a positive, students and teachers alike have come to realize how teaching to the test can harm students by placing exam scores over actual learning.

As a young adult, I can remember taking standardized exams exceptionally frequently. I had three testing periods in both middle school and high school. I took the ACT exam to be admitted into the University of South Dakota. And recently, I had to take the CAAP exam to prove I had learned what the university believed I should have learned so far.

Standardized testing often took up to a month of learning time from my classwork. Time that could have been spent learning viable concepts was dedicated towards exercises from expensive premade handbooks.

I am certain that my experience is not unique; most, if not all, of the students at USD have experienced what I have experienced. Not only was time wasted towards preparing for these exams, but unnecessary stress and anxiety was also involved. For some of these exams, failing could mean losing your scholarship, your admission into a university, or your ability to move on to the next semester. As college students, the added stress is not something we need.

I have never been a proponent of standardized testing. While I do not have the answers to the problem of education and the struggles American students face, I can, with some confidence, state that standardized testing is not the solution.

We place too much emphasis on exam scores and not enough on a healthy learning environment. We waste classroom time preparing for them. And, in truth, they do not measure the extent or the quality of our learning. Standardized tests have affected every student in America, but not in a way that promotes success.

We need to rethink our education standards and we need to do it soon.