To the U.S. Department of Education,
When I think of my sophomore and junior years, a common theme in both pops up: standardized testing. I think of the countless hours I have spent trying to learn how to strategically read the long paragraphs, how to solve the many math problems, and how to analyze articles in order to write that rhetorical essay. I think of the thousands of dollars my parents spent, just so I could receive a numerical score. The many hours I, or even my tutors, had to sit in a classroom to learn the “tricks” in how to solve each question efficiently and correctly. Standardized testing, especially the SAT and ACT, should not be a requirement for students as it is not an accurate measure of a student’s academic potential and abilities.
To begin, standardized testing is a test that objectively assesses the academic standards of student in a standardized format with computerized scoring to reduce the bias and subjective evaluations. To keep it fair, the test requires all students to answer the same questions and is scored in a consistent and standard manner to allow the state or nation compare the performance of students to each other. Since 2002, after the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and the updated 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been implemented, every student, from 3rd to 8th grade, has to take the state standards test with the average results being made public (Berwick).
Almost every college student has taken the SAT or ACT in their junior or senior years of high school. According to CollegeBoard, “most four-year colleges require scoers, and some two-year colleges recommend them. Nearly all four-year colleges require you to submit admission test scores.” Although standardized testing should not be a requirement for students, the test itself has some positive impacts. For example, standardized testing holds schools and educators accountable for their student’s performance and educational results. It evaluates if students have learned what they are expected to and if they have met the state’s standards. However, many colleges are starting to not require the standardized testing as the scores are “proved to be strongly linked to family income, family education level, and race” (Valerie Strauss, Washington Post).
However, standardized testing does not teach students the material they need to know for their regular school assignments, and standardized testing is now considered an additional pressure that students have to face. “Tests don’t explicitly teach anything. Teachers do” (Jose Vilson). Teachers are the ones that essentially control how much a student knows. Having a test that is created by another individual is unfair as students will have to learn additional material to successfully do the tests. As competition grows to get into the top colleges, standardized testing is becoming misused and can even be called an abuse of testing. Tests are supposed to be a reflection of a student’s performance. However, because of the growing competition, standardized testing has become an indicator how much a student can memorize, but not actually learn. “The pressure to raise test scores has become so strong that testing often degrades instruction rather than improving it. Many parents have encountered this – large amounts of teaching time lost to test prep that is boring, or worse” (Bari Walsh).
A student’s SAT or ACT score strongly depends on the level of education a student receives and how much additional help they are able to get. Standardized testing has an inherent bias towards certain groups, such as students of color, underprivileged children, and students with disabilities. In a 2013 paper titled, “Race, Poverty and SAT Scores,” researchers Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman from the University of Pennsylvania and John J. Mcardle from the University of Southern California found that wealthy students earn higher SAT scores compared to their low-income peers (Dixon-Roman and Mcardle, Race, Poverty and SAT Scores). In addition, according to the Washington Post, students whose families earn more than $200,000 a year earn an average score of 400 above the students whose families earn less than $20,000 a year. These minority and underprivileged groups do not have the same amount of resources that better communities or groups have with the million dollar industry of test prep and tutors. Daniel Koretz describes standardized testing as a “fraud – an expensive harmful intervention that does little to improve the practice it purports to measure, instead feeding a vicious cycle of pointless test prep.” Not everyone has a similar opportunity to receive fair scores.
In the past, these exams were only given to place students into classes or to see what kind of help they needed. Recently, these scores have been published onto news sources and are now used as a criteria and judgement for children, teachers, and schools. From a student’s perspective, these exams are now the guidelines that determine whether one receives a diploma or not. In addition, today, the significance of the SAT or ACT is to determine what kind of future the student has ahead of them. “Our children are tested to an extent that is unprecedented in our history and unparalleled anywhere else in the world” (Alfie Kohn). This industry is also growing more competitive for their personal benefits. The corporations that create and score these tests gain enormous profits because almost every student is required to take these tests. These same companies end up selling materials designed to raise scores that was designed by themselves (Kohn).
Today, with the global pandemic COVID-19, some colleges do not require standardized testing anymore. According to Governor Newsom, he states that “this time is stressful enough for students, families and educators without the additional burdon of annual testing … our main focus is on supporting the mental and socioemotional health of students, while continuing to provide educational opportunities such as distance learning.” This emphasizes the fact that standardized testing, even without the global pandemic, is stressful. Students spend months, even years, preparing for these tests, especially with the SAT and ACT. Luckily, a record number of colleges and universities have dropped the requirement that students need to submit a test score. This is in addition to the dozens of colleges and universities that have exponentially dropped this requirement. Many colleges believe that “the value of a single test score and the fairness of using that score in admissions when all students do not have the same access to great teachers and test preparation” is unfair (Valerie Strauss).
To conclude, standardized testing should not be a requirement for students as it is not an accurate and fair way to measure a student’s academic potential. There are a variety of factors that can impact a student’s score, such as their economic status, race, and privileges. Standardized testing is not how it was used before as it is based more on getting a good score rather than seeing how much a student has actually learned.
Works Cited
“(PDF) Race, Poverty and SAT Scores: Modeling the Influences of Family Income on Black and White High School Students’ SAT Performance.” ResearchGate, http://www.researchgate.net/publication/280232788_Race_Poverty_and_SAT_Scores_Modeling_the_Influences_of_Family_Income_on_Black_and_White_High_School_Students’_SAT_Performance.
Ascd. “Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality.” Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality – Educational Leadership, http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don’t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx.
Berwick, Carly. “What Does the Research Say About Testing?” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 25 Oct. 2019, http://www.edutopia.org/article/what-does-research-say-about-testing.
Partnership, Great Schools. “Standardized Test Definition.” The Glossary of Education Reform, 12 Nov. 2015, http://www.edglossary.org/standardized-test/.
Strauss, Valerie. “A Record Number of Colleges Drop SAT/ACT Admissions Requirement amid Growing Disenchantment with Standardized Tests.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 Oct. 2019, http://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/18/record-number-colleges-drop-satact-admissions-requirement-amid-growing-disenchantment-with-standardized-tests/.
Strauss, Valerie. “Dozens of Colleges and Universities Are Dropping SAT/ACT Requirements for Fall 2021 Applicants, and Some for Longer.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 10 Apr. 2020, http://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/10/sat-act-2021-coronavirus/.
“When Testing Takes Over.” Harvard Graduate School of Education, http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/11/when-testing-takes-over.
ENG 206 - Chloe Lee 