For years, the question of the American education system has been: What is the most effective way to judge the quality of our schooling system and its' students?

Tests such as the ACT were put into place to allow next level academic institutions to rank students among each other for the purpose of determining admissions, as well as for the government to rank the success of it's education program. However, the system is flawed; standardized testing has proved to be an inaccurate method of measuring students' academic ability.

Psychologists have stated for years that there are several different styles of learning. For example: some people learn best through visual intake (visual learning), other through auditory input (auditory learning), and some even through hand on experience (kinesthetic learning). This diversity makes it nearly impossible to test everyone the exact same way and still collect accurate results.

Similarly, time management can be an issue as well. Being that most standardized test are timed, or in timed sections, they often readily give a disadvantage to those who work at a naturally slower pace. The test are, more or less, setting some students up for failure before the test even begins.

Another factor that effects the reliability of standardized test results is the common nature of conditions such as anxiety, or ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). These conditions and many others are becoming more and more prevalent in today's youth and, though they do impact a student's performance, they're often overlooked because they're not necessarily "handicaps".

Therefore, most students struggling with a similar problem in a testing setting, more times than not, will not receive special consideration they may need for optimum results. This, once again, puts a large quantity of students at a disadvantage before ever starting the testing process.

Furthermore, the amount of time put towards preparing for standardized test in the classroom severely takes away from a student's learning experience. Teachers have become more focused on training kids to get superior test scores rather than inspiring them to learn and retain something useful. As a result, the stress a student experiences in a high pressure classroom environment can majorly negatively impact performance.

Lastly, evidence strongly suggest that it's time to stop scoring people based on their ability to regurgitate information onto a page. A superior or lacking memory does not equal an above or below average student.

The harsh reality of it is that there are an abundance of extremely bright students who walk away from their educational experience feeling stupid; thinking that they aren't good enough simply because the number on the top of their paper wasn't "acceptable".

Standardized testing negatively impacts students' confidence and performance level, and attempts to take a species of unique beings and place them under the scrutiny of one style of judgment. It gives many students with brilliant minds an enormous disadvantage, punishing diversity, and is therefore an unfit means to determining a student's true ability in the classroom.