Texas Standardized Testing is Flawed

Does Passing or failing a standardized test prove your adequacy or inadequacy of knowledge on academic standards? The state of Texas seems to think that Standardized testing is the answer for showing the progress of the students and their ability to comprehend the curriculum set by Texas standards. Emphasizing the importance on scoring well enough to pass begins when the student enters the third grade. Teachers are spending more of their time concentrated on how to get their students to pass the tests rather then teaching about history, current events, or even how to structure a well written paper. Many people believe that the outcome of students scores are a direct results on how well the students were taught by their teachers, adding more pressure on the students and teachers. Standardized testing can also make the students feel as though there’s something wrong with them, or that they are not as smart as their fellow classmate if they do not pass. The test fails to measure the different learning styles that students have along with the possible poor test taking skills. Some children take up to 4 hours on the rather new TAKS (Texas assessment of knowledge and skills) test, far exceeding the attention span of any human being. Basically, standardized testing is thought by many people to be unfair and an improper way of measuring an array of student’s knowledge on different subjects, and now it’s required that you obtain a passing score in order to graduate from high school. Hopefully the state of Texas is making steps in improving this flawed system of testing the knowledge of students across Texas