How do standardized tests shape how students are taught?

I have taken countless

standardized tests in my school career. We took these exams in tiny rooms until we got to high

school where we were then put in a large gym with our entire grade and told that these tests were

crucial to our future. When we were first about to take the MCAS we were drilled even though

we had learned everything they thought we could. For third graders to be drilled was crazy, and

we all went home thinking this test would make or break us. Each year whenever these exams

came up the teachers in our school would start to stress about the exams which would cause all

of the students to stress. Whatever we were learning in whatever subject was coming up would

be halted in place of review for an exam that we took every year, sometimes more than one

exam. Creativity is being smothered by the need for schools to acquire good scores on these

exams.

Schools have focused on preparing students to do well on taking these multiple choice

exams but have not prepared the students on real life solutions to real life problems. This is in

opposition to having instruction that encourages creativity in students. In his essay Testing for

better and worse: our testing culture may be making us smarter but at the expense of the wisdom

and creativity we'll need to flourish in our world, former professor of both Yale and Tufts,

psychologist Robert J Sternberg states, Becoming an expert in the skills required for taking

multiple-choice tests may crowd out the skills needed for other life challenges--namely, those

required for creative and wise thinking. (Sternberg). Even in advanced placement (AP) courses

the entire course was geared for the students to acquire passing grades on the exam that occurred

at the end of the course. There always seemed to be a mad dash in school right before we were
going to take the state-wide exam, known as MCAS, to review even though that is actually all

we had been doing up to that point in the school year. Sternberg went on to point out that school

has become an instruction on how to do well on standardized tests and that it should also work

on the importance of creativity and wisdom. He went on in his article to give explain three

reasons why creativity and wisdom should not be shoved aside as it is being in schools. The first

reason he gave was that the human race would still be in the stone age without creativity

(Sternberg). The second was that wisdom is arguably more important than intelligence and

creativity as wisdom is what makes a good leader, not intelligence which makes an intelligent

leader. Lastly he pointed out that both creativity and wisdom assist us in our daily lives to solve

problems. These are excellent points as to why students need to have less of an instructional

course building up to test after test after test.

What does the younger generation, the ones who are being drilled rather than taught

think? In the article The Case Against Standardized Testing, Quinn Mulholland writes about

the accountability that is put on schools with these standardized tests. Mulholland points out that

this increased focus on test prep has had a profoundly negative impact on the quality of

education many students receive. (Mulholland). Also there have been laws, such as the No child

left behind act, that puts increased pressure on schools to crank out good results from their

students. This pressure is often felt as eleven teachers in Atlanta were caught trying to tamper

with tests. Mulholland writes;

The law required states to administer math and reading tests every year to students

from third to eighth grade and imposed increasingly harsh punishments on schools that

failed to make adequate yearly progress on these tests. (Mulholland)

In 2011 almost half of schools nationwide were considered failing as there was not an

acceptable progress on tests. Following these poor results some administrators and schools have

pressured students who were not performing to their standards to drop out or go into a special

education program. That could actually hinder a childs education. By dropping out they actually

stop their education career and if they are put into a special education program that could harm

their confidence and their test scores could become even worse than they were if they would be

taught in a non-test prep format.

Though it seems schools are preparing students on how to take and pass a test and not

allowing activities that promote creativity and wisdom. The question that should be considered is

how are we going to fix the problem of standardized tests and their influence on schooling.

Rather than drilling students to pass a test schools should create an involved and creative

environment. What can the government do to limit the amount of drill and review in schools?

What can schools do to make a more creative environment? Would less drill and review make a

difference in the stress level of students?

Work cited

Sternberg, Robert J. "Testing for better and worse: our testing culture may be making us smarter
but at the expense of the wisdom and creativity we'll need to flourish in our world." Phi Delta
Kappan, vol. 98, no. 4, 2016, p. 66. Academic OneFile,
libraries.state.ma.us/login?gwurl=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=mlin_s_
wheaton&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA477340486&asid=3102d3fc32a91dd6ed2e989c1efd24bb
. Accessed 15 Feb. 2017.
Mulholland, Quinn. The case against standardized testing - Harvard political review.
Diversity. Harvard Political Review, 14 May 2015. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.