I come from a big family and we all have had to take standardized tests, some even starting in kindergarten. As a child, I never thought the tests would affect me or even prevent me from doing something with my life. The only standardized test that has ever affected me was the SATs but luckily, students are allowed to take the SATs as many times as possible. However, it doesn't matter how many times you've studied and practiced, standardized tests just aren't for everybody.
The SATs were the only academic test that I thought could affect someone's life in a negative way, but as of Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016, the PARCC (The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) test will affect every student from the class of 2021 forward. Just as colleges were starting to focus less on standardized testing, The New Jersey Board of Education decided to enforce a new graduation assessment, passing not one but two standardized tests. The class of 2021 will be the first class that will have to pass both the 10th-grade English and the Algebra I exams, which according to NJ.com, "fewer than 50% of students have conquered thus far."
Save Our Schools NJ is a group of parents who fought against the state board of education about the PARCC. The group said, "despite unified opposition from parents, school board members, and teachers, the State Board of Education chose to endorse a graduation requirement so inappropriately difficult, it fails nearly 60 percent of all students." The results from last year's tests showed that only 41% of students passed the Algebra I test and 44% passed the 10th-grade English test.
One ray of hope to this test is that students who fail are allowed to retake it and if they continue to fail, a portfolio of their class work, school transcripts and other academic achievements will be reviewed and could take place of the PARCC grade. Years prior, students didn't have to take the PARCC because SATs and ACTs were alternate tests that students could take but that ends with the class of 2020. SATs and ACTs will no longer take the place of the PARCC, requiring students to take all three standardized tests.
According to NJ.com "the previous graduation test, which New Jersey abandoned after 2014, was passing too many students who were ultimately enrolled in remedial courses during the first year of college." One member on the Board of Education said "students aren't graduating where they need to be."
As an older sister to two boys still in the New Jersey public school system, this aggravates me severely. The Board of Education, instead of focusing on things high school students should be learning, like writing a research paper using correct citations and learning how to pay taxes correctly, are focusing on giving a standardized test that doesn't help prepare for college in any way. If students are forced to pass an Algebra I and 10th-grade English exam, how the hell is that going to be beneficial in college? By the time they're in college they've passed 12th grade and know two year's worth of information that they don't think they'll need because it wasn't a requirement for graduation.
And why focus on just math and English? If PARCC stands for The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, then why aren't students forced to pass a science or history exam? College doesn't just focus on math and English, and some college students take one English class and never take another again. It all depends on what the student decides to study in college. If the State Board of Education wants students to graduate where they need to be, they should stop seeing students as percentages and averages but as people who want a lot more out of life than knowing Hamlet was depressed because his mom married his uncle and how to figure out what x stands for.
Another thing about standardized testing that really bugs me is that standardized tests aren't for everyone. Many people, some including people I love dearly, have been affected negatively because of standardized testing and weren't given the opportunities they deserved because one test said they weren't good enough-- and now someone who means the world to me who has trouble learning is going to be forced to take a standardized test to pass high school. This person, who shall remain nameless, has big plans for his future and where he wants to go to college, and now he is being told that failing one test, which relates in no way to what he wants to do in the future, can change and ruin his dreams.
Making students take tests is like making a baseball team play football to get to the World Series. Why would a baseball team be forced to play football just to move on in their baseball career? It's also like asking the football team to play baseball to move on to the Super Bowl. How could they win a baseball game against a baseball team if they've only played football? And if they did win, how could it benefit them for the Super Bowl? Making students take standardized tests is like making a football team play a baseball team in soccer and the team that wins can continue playing their sport, so if baseball won, football would become illegal to play and the football players would have no future because they lost a game they weren't prepared for. How is that fair? Basically, how can you make someone do something that they aren't good at and expect it to work out well and benefit them?
If someone wanted to become a nurse, how can one english test prevent that? If someone wanted to become a lawyer, why should one math test stop them? I want to become a journalist, why does one test about biology give someone the right to take away my chances at being a writer?
The New Jersey Board of Education has disappointed many people and will cause so much more stress for students when trying to maintain an average/above average GPA. Stop teaching children and teenagers that one test, one comment, one grade, can affect the rest of their life.
