Education is not one-size-fits-all.
That's not how the world works, and that's not how people learn. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the education system in the United States is becoming. With the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 by President George W. Bush, states became required to test all students (3rd to 8th grade, and once more in 9th or 10th) to ensure that they were meeting state standards of academic accomplishment. This is how tests like the PARCC, MCAS, and NECAP came into existence. It's been fifteen years; more and more students, parents, and educators are crying out for drastic reform or total elimination of standardized testing.
The goal of No Child Left Behind was to provide all students with a fair and equal opportunity to get a good education, by holding the states accountable for making sure their students are being taught effectively. However, this mission completely backfired. The ability to receive a quality education has been altogether compromised, because these standardized tests are expensive, time-consuming, and wholly unfair.
A D.C-based research group, The Brookings Institution, determined that prior to the implementation of standardized tests, approximately $423 million dollars per year was paid by states toward the purpose of testing (in 2001). Since 2002, the average amount of money spent by states in order to prepare for and administer tests has skyrocketed to $1.7 billion per year - over a 300 percent increase than what it was before No Child Left Behind. Experts from all political and educational backgrounds agree that money could be put to much better use, like research grants, new equipment, computers, smart-boards, higher quality art and extra-curricular programs, summer enrichment, and more. The possibilities of worthy investments are endless, and every single one of them would teach children more than standardized tests do.
These tests not only use up valuable tax dollars, but also valuable time inside the walls of elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States. Particularly concerning is the momentous decline of music, drama, performing arts, and visual arts programs. The Department of Education, currently fighting to even stay in existence, has claimed to be dealing with these issues, but schools haven't seen much improvement - almost none at all, in fact, since the late nineties. The benefits of art education among K-12 students are limitless, including resourcefulness, increased self-motivation, improved social skills, creative ability and self-expression. It has even been proven, in many cases, to improve school attendance and raise grades in other curricula. Educational experts, like Ohio teacher Dawn Neely-Randall, have testified to the fact standardized tests have only been shown to directly cause extreme anxiety and self-loathing in children. Neely-Randall said that she was "terrified" after witnessing one of her ten-year-old students have a nervous breakdown mid-test; this is not the only occurrence of this happening, either. Young students around the country have claimed that the tests not only make them nervous, but make them feel like failures. Enrichment activities and art education seem to be the smarter use of children and educators' time, clearly the much more worthwhile choice in this situation. Do we want to mold insecure, anxious students, or motivated, creative ones?
Aside from being a gigantic waste of school time and state money, standardized tests just don't work. They have proven ineffective at improving academic performance, and they don't even accurately measure what they are supposed to measure. They have little to no flexibility for variables such as special-needs students, home-schooled students, and students who do not speak English as well as their peers. There are a great number of cheating scandals and incidents of inaccurate scoring. Most importantly, they are simply unfair. As if it weren't unfair enough to cause anxiety and insecurity in elementary school children, the standardized tests are, well, standardized. The idea of testing every student equally sounds good in theory, but in real life, it just doesn't work. Every child is different. Millions of children in the United States have learning disabilities, and millions more do not speak English as their primary language. Not to mention, since there are standardized test-prep materials available for purchase, some students may be able to afford those materials while others cannot afford them. How are these students given any opportunity to do as well as their peers? Some students are, in fact, given accommodations while taking the test - but doesn't that very idea defeat the purpose of "standardized" testing in the first place? Overall, it is impossible to measure the intelligence of every single child in the United States in using the exact same method, and it is unfair to hold every child, regardless of background, to the exact same standard. They deserve more flexibility, more understanding. More compassion.
Standardized testing in the United States is in dire need of drastic reinvention or complete removal. Not only has it failed at fulfilling its purpose, but it has also failed educators, parents, and children across the nation. It has wasted our money, our time, and diminished the confidence of kids to become successful students. The educators of America deserve to teach something besides test-prep, something that inspires them as well as their students. The parents of America deserve to know that their child's academic and personal achievement is determined by more than just a test score. Most importantly, the children of America deserve to not be discouraged, but instead to be uplifted, inspired, and educated - the right way.
