Standardized Testing

Standardized Testing is for lazy people. If there were no lazy people, then a person's grade point average would be an accurate description of how well they are doing in school.

Standardized Testing is for rich white men. These tests are written by well educated, upper class, white, men. This means that the language they use, their sentence structure, their grammatical preferences, and any word association that is assumed comes from their way of thinking. It has been proven by many researchers that minorities, women, and the poor do much worse on these tests. For a time it was assumed that the faults of these groups in the area of standardized tests reflected their inferior intelligence. Minorities were assumed to be inferior and therefore deserved their place at the bottom. Women were assumed to be inferior and therefore deserved their place raising children at home. The poor were assumed to be inferior and thereby their poverty was easily explained as a consequence of their stupidity. All of these assumptions have been disproved as we have evolved as a society, but we still rely on standardized tests to tell us the academic value of students. Why?

Standardized Testing is racist, sexist, and elitist. There is no reason that we as a society need to continue to rely on these tests to determine the worth of our students. Let their work show their understanding. Let us finally take that step out of the age of rich white men and move into a world where everyone really does have an equal shot at success. If we allow our leaders (who are primarily rich white men) to dictate the means of testing in our schools, then the system will never change. They want their children to do better and look smarter. They do not care if it is a false representation. They do not care if the average person is left behind. If the playing field were leveled, then wealth would not be something that children born to poor parents could only dream of having. Cheating should not be the only choice that is offered to the children of poor citizens with little or no education. It should not be the only choice for children of immigrants or minorities. It should never be an easier choice than working hard and learning.

When we make learning about the numbers you get, it stops being about the education that causes personal groath. If all that is important is getting a 36 on the ACT, then no one will care to study things that will not appear on that test. How can we move forward if our manse of advancing young minds into the future has been corrupted by standardized testing to the point that the only reason to learn is to get a big number on a test.