Should standardised testing be abolished. Yes. 100000%. But why? What are the real facts around standardised tsting? Well here are my reasons.
A standardized test is a test that is admisistered to every student in a certain age group, and is used to determine the grades of the students. In some cases you need to pass the test to move up a grade/year. The questions are the same for every students, and can be used to judge a teachers skills in teaching their students.
Immediately I see some problems with this practice, and that’s a two line definition.
First of all, the abilities of a student is NOT a reflection of their teacher(s). Student’s with learning disabilities such as ADHD, Dislexia, Discalcula, Disgraphia and more, wouldn’t always proform as well neurotypical students, but that isn’t a reflection of their abilities or the abilities of their teacher, that’s just the way they learn, and in most situations, it paints student’s with those needs in a negative light. If a teacher was judged on the avarage scoring of their class, then that is making the assumption that every student learns the exact same, every student has been given all the opertunities they needed by past teachers, that they have the resorces to study in their home, that they all had enough sleep the night before, there are too many variables for it to be a fair experiment/test/assessment, whatever you want to call it.
Second of all, it creates the idea of a perfect student, that goes something like this.
“Stanley is a kid just like you. He gets 10 hours of sleep every night, he finds it easy to work hard in school, he isn’t easily distracted, he is never bullied, he doesn’t stand out too much, he is not affected by paranoia, anxiety, or depression, and he has no learning differences. Stanley will be sucessful. Be like Stanley.”
That makes every other student that isn’t like Stanley feel like they are somehow doing something wrong. Maybe Patricia has serious anxiety, does that make her a worse student? Is it fair to judge her against students like Stanley, when Stanley is not the same as Patrica? What if Jacob is being bullied and abused, and thereforehas other things on his mind that stop him from being able to focus when studying or taking a test. Should Jacob be shamed, called stupid, or held back a year because he is the victem of bullying and abuse? It trains kids from a young age that they need to be the same as everyone else to succeed, or that sucess in school is the only thing that matters.
Thirdly, standardised testing has been proven to cause so much extra stress to students, that can have a long term affect on their mental health. The Education Ministry wants kids to go to school, that’s literally the goal of almost every government based around education. But countries with standardised testing are creating a sense of stress and anxiety around school that is completely unnecessary.