why do many highschools, and now some colleges, stress standardized testing?

The No Child Left Behind Act, The Every Student Succeeds Act - federal department of education is the call for more testing just another way to maintain the status quo?

Standardized Testing Just Reveals Stark Inequalities Between Rich and Poor.

Data from the tests is high stakes all around; it’s linked to individual students’ academic advancement, teacher evaluations, and overall school performance ratings. Proponents of testing usually argue that collecting such data is necessary to measure student achievement and hold educators accountable. But truly it is just to show where the poor under deserved stand in educational opportunities, enrichment and stalemate to a higher educational or academic level in the future or move towards an Ivy league experience.

The real honest surprising explanation those Republican Tea Party Conservatives basis is for why students really ought to take these tests: Schools are one of the biggest differentiators of value in the suburbs.

How valuable will a house be in elite suburbs and millionaire neighborhoods when it isn't clear that the schools districts are doing any better than the rest of the states areas or even the entire state? So when those Opting out of tests only robs parents of that crucial data.

The opt-out movement was bigger than ever this year, student test scores count for 50% of a teacher's evaluation, critics of high stakes testing had even more evidence to argue that the so called “education reform” agenda has more to do with firing teachers and closing public schools and engaging for profit initiatives to serve the public capitalistic society as a whole rather than the public interest than it has to do with ending inequality.

The state governments and its elected officials, the elite class and the republican tea partiers conservatives and those upper class homebuyers to its logical conclusion would suggest that testing is actually about maintaining inequality, not fighting it.

It is apparent that this competition, market-based ideology accepts that there will be inadequate resources for some and an abundance for others, most Urban Inner City public school parents and teachers.I would argue that all public schools should and could be excellent places for all of us and our children and communities. Some community advocates rejects the premise of pro-testing reformers that standardized tests are reliable indicators of quality education. Historically, standardized tests have been reliable indicators of access to resources and nothing more nothing less.

When it comes to resources, there’s no question that wealthy school districts in those Red States have aligned an abundance compared to those Blue States that serve poorer children. According to data from the Education Trust, the highest poverty districts in both those RED and BLUE states receive 10% less funding per student in state and local revenues than those with the lowest poverty rates. Adjusted for the needs of students in poverty—who, according to the federal Title 1 formula, cost at least 70% more to educate—the poorest districts actually receive 16% less than those with the least poverty. On top of that, districts serving the most students of color and ethnicity's especially those of Latino and Spanish descent receive 20% less per student than those serving the fewest students of color.

Given these funding disparities at the state and local level especially those in the RED Tea Party Conservative states, on top of the individual advantages that wealth provides their students, like access to school supplies, tutoring, and enrichment, it becomes clear that students in a place like the southern tea party states aren’t on remotely the same playing field as students in the Blue Northern states have access to other resources, where there is a 65% child poverty rate in the poorer states. Using the data provided by standardized tests to argue that wealthier neighborhoods have “better” schools further entrenches that inequality. Wealthier neighborhoods simply have wealthier schools and better resources because there parents and govt. party constituents are wealthy.

“It makes me so angry that there are people the Tea Party Republican Conservatives and the Koch Brothers Initiative and there long line of host of 1%'s who have so much money and so much power, who are using that power to keep the undeserved students in poverty, by putting policies in place that they know will keep some property values high and some property values low. so most city public schools and its insurgence of problems is significant because it unveils what’s beneath the successful narrative of so many education reformers who advocate for closing public schools in the name of equality.

The narrative has been so carefully constructed and thoughtfully worded to call it a civil rights narrative. I think there are a lot of well intentioned people that buy into that narrative including passionate teachers who believe in the charter school movement. They're not seeing the other side of that, which is that this is a competitive system where kids are losing more and more.

Urban Inner City public school parents whose has chosen for there kids to opt out of the tests, was surprised to hear the focus on wealthy communities, given that the entire standardize testing agenda is all about focusing on accountability for schools in under-resourced communities. (A national reform organization, DFER advocates for policies which stimulate the creation of new, accountable public schools (particularly charter schools) and…simultaneously close down failing schools.) They’re supposed to be concerned with the so-called failing schools that are failing poor students, not with suburban property owners and the idea of capitalistic education.

Yes even though the tests are a determining factor in some high school admissions; [Opting out] really diminishes the opportunities for applying to different schools, which is, of course, part of the whole market-based consumer model of education ushered in by the No Child Left Behind Act and the Republican Conservative Tea Party Agenda where as each state should take care of there own educational system and have the rights to teach what ever they want i.e. (so Texas that would exclude Black History Month and Black History) also ( so Florida that claims Jim Crow and Slavery Laws were good real correct laws and that the federal government interfered in states law rights).

Being a firm believers in quantitative measurement; qualitative data is also inclusive in educating every individual and meet every students need to learn achieve graduate and move to higher education. But as the students lost of increasing amounts of instruction time to test prep, and as the tests become further connected to teacher evaluations, it just becomes more and more obvious that Standardized Testing they were used for political reasons and not for pedagogy.

Indeed, according to DFER’s website, the organization’s mission is to support leaders who champion America's public schoolchildren. But it is expressed as similar sentiment in a DFER blog post, writing: How will suburban communities maintain their draw if there isn’t a measure of how the schools are actually doing in comparison to those across the educational divide of states? It went on to argue that test data has sparked so many positive changes for low income students.

In other statements claims it is the opt-out movement, not testing, that really harms low-income students: The people who are opting out of tests are largely those who already feel like their child has access to a high-quality education, and are doing so in a way that directly harms low-income and minority students throughout the nation and state educational funding for local cities. We should be supporting students and teachers throughout the nation and state funded local educational systems, whether they are in Vermont or the Southern Belt, from the poorest of Appalachia to the Oregon Trail and making sure all students have a fair shot at a quality education. Rather than maintain the status quo where wealth determines a quality education, data can and should highlight where the gaps are so we can invest in schools cross the board in the nation entirely that need it the most.

The suggestion that the resistance to testing is populated by people who have no stake in the matter is evidently an attempt to make the protest seem less legitimate than it actually is; it is, however, an accusation that is demonstrably untrue, as reports of just who is opting out make clear.

Ninety-one percent of students are black or Latino, and 81 percent are economically disadvantaged. is not unique— (90 percent black or Latino, 77 percent economically disadvantaged) had an opt-out rate of 36.4 percent; some states reported (49 percent black or Latino, 56 percent economically disadvantaged) had an opt-out rate that exceeded 61 percent; and Southern States of the Country opt outs (50 percent black or Latino and 51 percent economically disadvantaged) exceeded 64 percent.

Those numbers clearly run counter to the narrative that the movement is exclusively white and middle-class. And while new data analysis reveals that districts with the highest opt-out rates had 50% or fewer students receiving free and reduced lunch, the opt-out numbers were higher this year in nearly every district where data is known. Critics of testing also point out that there are a number of factors making it harder for low-income families to refuse, from language barriers to a lack of educational options.

Families who are struggling financially are in even more difficult situations because they've been pressured to raise the scores to keep their schools open,parents and teachers says. High stakes standardized tests are a distraction when we already know what the problems are. That is why families, especially in the shrinking middle class and the poor and under-deserved populations, are realizing more and more that the only way for the world to here there cry for help for there kids and education from public day cares to public HBCU's that need federal funding for our population to continue with a solid educational / higher academia too and Ivy League Institution of learning is push back against policies that deepen inequities, is to refuse the standardize tests.

Forrest,
Your teachers did you and your classmates a grave disservice in the long run. As the responses above indicate, teacher's salary and retention were tied into the scores that their students received on standardized tests. This idea is fundamentally flawed, i.e., to measure student success solely on the basis of standardized test scores. So, your teachers cheated...how terrible for you.

Evaluating teaching effectiveness is really a difficult task and involves multiple measurements, just as measuring student knowledge acquisition requires multiple measurements and assessments. Standardized testing is necessary in order to compare all students against the same benchmark. I could write volumes on this idea, but will refrain from doing so in this response to you.

So, I hear that you are struggling in college Perhaps you need to cut back on the number of courses that you are taking each semester so that you can focus more time and effort on just a few courses. Yes, it might take you a little longer to finish your degree, but in the long run it will be better for you (less stress, better retention of material, better grades and overall better preparation for your future). Are you planning study time? If not, you need to start doing so. For every three credit course you are taking, you should be spending nine hours per week on that course! HOW are you studying? Perhaps your advisor can help you with better study habits (besides spending an adequate time studying). Some colleges/universities have Learning Centers for just this purpose...check it out. Is there peer tutoring at your school? If 'yes,' use those services as well. I strongly recommend "mind mapping" (do a google search for various approaches to mind mapping) as a study strategy. There is much research supporting its effectiveness for the retention of material.

Don't give up. Just do something different than what you're doing now, with assistance from others. HANG IN THERE. Lastly, forgive your grade school/high school teachers for their shortcomings; you cannot change the past - holding onto resentment only hurts you. You can only change the future.

Hi Forrest,

You ask a great question and unfortunately it's also one steeped in much controversy. Standardized testing provides a way for officials to evaluate large groups of people based on some baseline statistic. Of course it would be ideal to be able to teach and evaluate each student on an individual basis but on the national scale that becomes very difficult to do. For example, how would an admissions officer at a big state university sort through and evaluate the thousands of applications that they receive every year? They need some basis from which to judge that applicants. Standardized tests give them that starting point.

Standardized testing under past federal and state initiatives are also used to determine funding allocation to schools in need. But they're also used to track a school's improvement over time, or lack thereof. Again, this is a flawed methodology due to limitations in testing and scoring methods.

Unfortunately, due to the rigidity of standardized tests it's difficult to really evaluate a student's actual knowledge and understanding as opposed to how well they've learned to take a test.

The Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law by President Obama in December of 2015 and looks to overhaul a lot of the shortcomings of the No Child Left Behind Act that preceded it. It is unclear whether or not it will succeed but it shows that they recognize that there was a problem and that they are trying to address it.

I hope that this helps to answer some of your question. It is a failing of our government and institutions when students do not receive quality education. It is the responsibility of every person to strive to learn and understand more about the world around them. I hope that I have been able to provide a little insight into the process. For more information, I would recommend that you contact your local congressperson for more details and information on the Every Student Succeeds act. And take this opportunity to learn more about the education process and the world around you.