Now being a junior in high school, I have come to the conclusion of how standardized testing is a way for school systems to try and treat all the students equally, but what they do not know is that by trying to make all students equal they are ignoring the fact that students do not all learn the same way. Handling out #2 pencils and giving the same test to every student across the country is not effective.
These tests are not a good judgement of the student's potential capability especially when all of the students taking the exam don't have access to the same exact education. Albert Einstein once said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Standardized tests not only affects the student in the public school system but also its teachers and schools. These tests have the actual power to determine how well the students are being taught by their teachers. These type of tests also affects the school's overall reputation.
Because of that, this causes schools to focus more on providing test- prep course which takes the student's ability to take course that they enjoy and will help expand their creativity. I think majority of the school year should be dedicated to helping students learn things that will make them successful later in life, and how to apply things that they learn to the real world situations. However, these students are instead being taught to pass tests, and less than half the students are successful at passing test.
The amount of time students spend on "test prep" courses would be more beneficial if it was spent learning about taxes for example. At least we could use that in the future instead of learning trigonometry. Learning things about finance would help create more well- rounded students and those students will be the ones who will succeed and go to the college right after graduating from high school.
The worst part about these standardized test is the fact that colleges will determine how smart the student is by looking at how many multiple choice questions they can get right in a very short amount of time. These tests scores are looked upon before deciding whether or not this student is best suited for their school. I believe test scores should in no way be an indicator for determining what college you would get into.
