I have been taking ISTEP or some other form of standardized testing every school year since I can remember. I, along with many others, always hated it. Why did I have to sit in silence and take a test that everyone was preparing us for, but no one is grading, it doesn't help me. Teachers told me it was so that the state could see how well the students were learning and how well the teachers were teaching the curriculum and I accepted that answer. When I think more in depth about it though it doesn't really make sense, the tests don't seems to improve our education at all. In my opinion testing makes (some) teachers focus in only on the things that we will be tested on and skim over or sometimes even skip the things that we won't see on the test. When we skip over stuff because it won't be put on the test we are limiting what we learn which hurts us in the long run, because learning is like building blocks, if you leave one out you can't put anything on top of it.

Then, when you get to higher levels the teachers will expect that you have learned a topic or section when in reality your teacher last year skimmed over it and you are left struggling to catch up. I know that testing was designed to make sure that schools and teachers are doing their jobs, but the way that they are treated and prepared for really doesn't serve the intended purpose. If the intended purpose was to test and see if the students were learning everything they should be then why do we spend one or two weeks cramming all kinds of information and practice in before the tests. Shouldn't we have just learned it throughout the year?

I asked some of my teachers what they thought of state standardized testing so that I could get some other points of view on the topic and here are some things that they thought. One of my teachers said that she thought that the idea behind it is good, but what it has become isn't what it should be. When I asked how she thought it affects the curriculum she said that in elementary school and lower levels it can be restricting, because they want to make sure the students are prepared. In high school though, it doesn't have as much of an impact, because it works into the regular lesson plan easily so the teachers don't think much about it. I asked what she thought the main motivating factor is behind the tests and she said said that she thinks it is mostly about data and funding. Additionally she said that in her opinion the tests are putting knowledge in one box and it really can't be measured that easily.

When I mentioned the topic I would be writing about to my other teacher I didn't even have time to ask questions before she started telling me what she thought. She said that knowledge is something that cannot be measured properly. The tests aren't well rounded enough to get a good understanding of what students are learning. For instance art, Spanish, French, German, theater, engineering, and many more things aren't tested that could be vital in your future profession. So there can be a student that is getting low ISTEP scores on science and English when really their passion is to be a mechanic, we need people to fix our cars don't we? Is that student considered dumb because they don't understand some of the elements or what the poems deeper meaning was? She said that the tests don't necessarily narrow down what teachers teach, but it makes it so that they don't go as deep into subjects. If they're trying to prepare their students for a test when they don't even know what will be on it. So they are trying to cover as many topics as possible, but with all of that cramming it doesn't leave much time to go in depth on anything or to do the fun projects that students actually like and that allow teachers to effectively measure their progress. My teacher said that she believes the tests are all about data and getting school funding.

In my opinion I would much rather be able to go in depth on the topics that interest students the most and topics that are most relevant and useful to our future. The system that is supposed to check our progress in learning seems to be hindering it. I admit the idea is good, we need a way to make sure that students are learning effectively, but does this test really tell us how smart we are or how well we are learning the content? What if I'm just having a terrible day and I fail, does that mean the school isn't teaching me correctly or that I'm not paying attention in class? I think that if testing were to be taken down a notch so that it wasn't as big of a deal for a while it would be easier to study what students know and what they are lagging on, but you can't measure success based on the information we have been taught in the two weeks leading up to the test and you definitely can't measure knowledge with a test featuring only a few subjects.