The Future of Standardized Testing in United States Schools

Since 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Act was passed, debates about standardized exams have been ongoing up until today. When the Common Core State Standards was fully enforced in between 2014 and 2015, the debate further incited decision –making, reactions and response. This essay aims at explaining the need to retain the standardized test in the education system and its benefits. According to Augustine, the major issue with the United States of America education system is not the elevated rates of dropouts or the high numbers of unskilled and inadequate teachers; it is the standardized testing (57). This was ascertained after parents and teachers in Seattle, Buffalo, Philadelphia and many places advocated for leaners to bail out of taking the standardized exams. In the year 2013, educators and administrators in public institutions in Atlanta were arraigned and impeached over a purported plot of exaggerating their learner's exam scores to ensure approbation and acquire achievement-based rewards and bonuses.

As expected, most education supporters were vast in condemning the scandal on the exams themselves. On the contrary, standardized tests coerce teachers who are asleep on the job to work harder. According to Mehrens and Lehmann standardized tests enforces accountability on educators and learning institutions whose sole responsibility is to educate learners about the concepts they need to know about the standardized exams. When results are made public, educators and learning institutions performance is analyzed (1). By standardizing tests educators are able to decide what and when to teach learners. According to Harris, standardized exams are very objective compared to classroom results issued by teachers. This is because the exams scores are normally computer generated or scored by independent teachers who don't directly know the learners.