Standardized Testing in Education

¶ … Program Evaluation/Assessment on Your Daily Life:

Standardized testing in education

Programs in evaluating and assessing education have had a definitive impact upon family life. The new emphasis on standardized testing means that a larger proportion of the school day is devoted to test-taking strategies, reviewing content that is likely to be on the state exams, and upon drills rather than creative assignments. When children arrive home, they are more likely to have many hours of homework. Often the homework is less 'fun' to do, and thus it is more difficult for parents to urge their children to complete the work in a timely fashion. Because teachers are pressured to ensure their students to excel on such exams by the school administration, students often pick up on their teacher's anxiety, and this transforms into performance anxiety about their own work.

The influence of standards-based education has not entirely been 'bad,' at least in theory. Teachers who are less competent cannot coast through the educational system as easily as before, as their lack of preparation will be reflected in overall class scores upon standardized exams. Parents can feel a greater sense of security that their students will have some grounding in the basics. But a great deal of the joy of learning has been lost. There are fewer creative assignments that challenge students' multifaceted ways of learning. Students with different learning styles, such as visual, kinesthetic, or spatial learners, may feel frustrated by the large proportion of time spent sitting in class, listening to lectures. For parents with children who do not easily adapt to a highly structured environment, tears and frustration at homework time can be common. Children may even feel as if they are less bright, simply because they are naturally less well-adapted to a certain learning environment.

Standards-based education, by changing the way that educators approach their teaching, transforms the way students learn, and thus the way children live. There is less diversity between the classrooms, in terms of different teachers' content. Also, teachers cannot experiment with new methods of learning, given if one of these experiments 'fails' he or she is likely to be highly criticized for wasting precious classroom time. The arts, music, physical education, and many components of school that energize and attract less academic students are given less attention. Again, students may be less willing to go to school, and parents find themselves dragging unwilling bodies from the car to the school door, because the children feel they have little to look forward to, day in and day out.

The highly structured school day results in a more structured after-school environment. Parents take children to soccer practice and lessons to provide enrichment that is now lacking at school. This requires even the youngest children to have additional discipline in terms of when they begin their homework. Mealtimes may be lost, as families eat on the run, using what would once be quality time as a way of 'getting a jump' on the next day. McDonald's in the car suffices, rather than home-cooked meals, so homework can be attended to, as soon as the family walks through the door after a long, hard day.