Secondary students in the United States take many more tests today than they did

Question

Secondary students in the United States take many more tests today than they did even a decade ago. This includes high-stakes tests in order to earn a high school diploma. Opposing perspectives on high-stakes testing have been voiced in many schools, parent groups, community organizations, and state legislatures. Using the Internet, identify information and/or organizations that support high-stakes testing and information and/or organizations that oppose high-stakes testing. After accumulating the information, determine if you support or oppose high-stakes testing in high school. Format your response as follows: 1. Support of High-Stakes Testing in High School . Organization #1-provide a web link and summary of what you learned . Organization #2-provide a web link and summary of what you learned 2. Oppose High-Stakes Testing in High School . Organization #1-provide a web link and summary of what you learned . Organization #2-provide a web link and summary of what you learned 3. Do you support or oppose high-stakes testing in high school? Why?

Explanation / Answer

High-Stake tests are the brain child of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that mandated that students should pass standardized exams to move up in grade or pass in high schools.These tests after they are introduced caused more anxiety and negative impact among the students and the parents. Each individual in this world is skilled in one or two major areas such as science, maths, art which are innate most of the time. But these standardized tests force the studens to deviate from their innate ability and suffer in the hands of some subject which they don't do naturally.

Few organisations have supported the High-stake Tests and few opposed. Let's see two such organisations that support and oppose the High-stake tests.

Supporting

1. Peter Dewitt, in his December 14, 2014 blog has given three solid reasons to support High-Stake Tests.

Reason 1 - Seperates good students from bad ones - He argues that these tests separate students who perform well in academics from students who don't perform academically. His statement is that when all the variables are same how could some don't perform and some don't, probably they are not interested in doing that or they or not capable of doing it. Separating them will atleast help the teachers to focus on the performing students.

Reason 2 - Highlights the great schools - He says that the higher the test results the higher the standard of the school that educate those students. He also says the school may have good infrastructure, teachers and support system.

Reason 3 - Predictor of success - These tests will prove who will successfully complete their schools and who will drop out. So we save lot of money, enerfy and time.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2014/12/3_reasons_why_high_stakes_testing_matters.html

2. Jonathan Supovitz in his blog gives four major theories to support the High-Stake tests.

Theory of motivation - Theory of motivation suggests that when people see their scores they motivate themselves to perform better or someone else motivates them to perform better.

Theory of alignment - It will help streamligning all the students towards the common goal. The students will be made known that he is not aligned to the subject he is studying, hence he needs to put in extra effort to improve.

Theory of information - This helps in maintaining a statistical data about the performance of the students in various tests and this will in turn help the decision makers to amend or formulate regulations or systems.

Theory of symbolism - This is about the public accountability, the answerability part because public money is spent and they have the right to know whether it is being spent wisely.

http://www.gse.upenn.edu/review/feature/supovitz

Against

Change the Stake is an organisation that opposes the high-stake test. This organisation consists of New York parents and educators. They have recently launched a campaign against the High-Stake tests with the tagline, 'Because a good eucation can't be measured by a test score' and refuce to accept the tests for the following reasons.

1. High-Stake test tests the children only intrms of the Mathematical and Language ability and refuses to accept the importnce of other subjects like, Social studies, science, music etc.

2. It takes more test preparation time by allocating more time for thee two subjects and less time for other subjects.

3. They judge the child by only two skills but there are plenty of other skills where the child is good at. These tests are also used to retain or promote a child, which is highly unfair.

4. The test is developed using very twisted and tricky questions.

https://changethestakes.wordpress.com/testing-info/testing-in-nyc-public-schools/

New York City Coalition for Educational Justice that comprises of different civil rights groups have waged a legal war against the city's academic authorities for promoting inequality. They have started a campaign against the authorities and staged protests against them. They have the following reasons to do so.

1. There is no emprical evidence - This group points out most of the academician's point of view that there is no emprical evidence that one standardised test could decide the fate of all the students. They refuce to accept the fact that one medicine for all the ailments.

2. These tests promote class and race - Only 5% of the black and 7% of the latino students were able to clear the tests. So they are denied their right to education in good institutions because of the standardized tests.

3. Neglecting poor people - These tests benefit only the rich studnets to choose advanced courses as the state do not support poor children even if they have the capability. They only need an opportunity at the right place to excel.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14155/high_stakes_and_deep_inequalities_new_york_teachers_challenge_testing_regim/

3.

I don't completely oppose the High-Stake tests but I only oppose the idea that it's for all. In my opinion it could be conducted to those who have that aptitude towards those subjects and those who want to pursue higher studies in those subjects. If at all this should be tested then they need to develop a test that would have equal marks on all the subjects that they study and even in general subjects such as sports, music etc. This will ensure that everyone gets equal opportunity of scoring when assessed. Otherwise they need to conduct these tests only for students who choose those two major subjects (Maths and Language).

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