Category: American Education System

The chaotic crowd swarms the hallways desperately attempting to get a final breath of freedom before being consumed by the endless sharpening of number two pencils and the excruciating levels of stress that dominates the standardized testing environment. Standardized testing is the machine that programs children’s brains into a robotic, identical, and non-inventive way of thinking. This type of testing has been a key factor of American education since the 1800s. The idea of annually measuring a child’s intelligence by certain curriculum in a high stakes environment is a prevalent idea often incorporated into American society today regulated by the government. Recently, the assessments have evoked a national debate. A multitude of people are arguing that standardized testing should be eliminated and has the American education system speeding into a downward spiral. Carmel High School should implement the elimination of standardized testing because it creates a stressful environment that damages students psychologically and physically, they do not value creativity, and it creates a system of winners and losers.

The stressful environment of standardized testing negatively affects a person’s mental and physical wellbeing. Daniel H. Pink stated, “We’re motivated, productive, and happy… We should focus our efforts on creating environments for our innate psychological needs to flourish” (Pink 72). This quote means that in order for the most overall prosperity, people need to focus on their psychological needs and creating the best conditions physically as well in order to maintain happiness. This quote emphasizes the importance of psychological health by using certain word choice such as “productive” and “happy” to grasp the reader’s attention with words that people affiliate with success in order to highlight how to obtain these successful qualities. Pink implies that great emphasis should be placed on maintaining a healthy and well balanced psychological environment by stressing the importance of “creating environments for our innate psychological needs”. However, the standardized testing environment is unsuccessful in creating psychological success. Students are so consumed with performing well on the test because of numerous detrimental factors that they are besieged with stress and anxiety that can interfere and hinder their ability to take the test. This contradicts the environment that Pink stated is needed “to flourish” because academic ability is placed as a top priority at the expense of mental and emotional health. The author highlights “happy”, “motivated”, and “productive” to emphasis these necessary skills for success. The standardized testing environment does not resemble these qualities. I conducted a pool in our class asking the number of people that dislike standardized testing and 97% reported they disliked it. This shows how people are not going to be motivated, happy, and productive because the environment is not enjoyable. According to an organization called Parents Acoss America, the author stated, “Parents, teachers, administrators, school and private mental health professionals report student nausea, dizziness, crying, vomiting, panic attacks, tantrums, headaches, near-fainting, sleeplessness, refusal to go to school, meltdowns, depression, and suicide threats” (Parents Across America). This quote shows the observation of the various physical consequences of intensive standardized testing. This quote emphasizes “Parents, teachers, administrators, school and private mental health professionals” to show the variety of adults that are recognizing and concerned about the behavior of children under an extreme amount of pressure in standardized testing environments. Fulton lists multiple examples to imply the multitude of harmful effects that these tests can cause which stirs fear within the reader as they see extremity of the effects such as “suicidal thoughts” and “depression”. If students were able to create their own criteria, the environment would focus more on their own psychological and physical needs. Standardized testing needs to be eliminated because it causes detrimental damage to a person’s wellbeing

Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This quote reflects a common feeling among many students. This feeling is by no means new. In 1901, the College Examination Board was created in the United States. They put in place standards for testing. The tests given would examine the knowledge of students in nine different subjects. This test was to be the same across the whole country and give each student a fair chance. From the first tests, educators and students alike have agreed on the poor method of how the tests are produced and graded. The results lead to schools, teachers, and students being ranked by their success on the tests.

The way that these tests are run does not help teachers or students. Standardized testing should not be used to evaluate the performance of a school, teachers, or students. Standardized testing is not fair and does not accurately represent the knowledge of the students or the success of teachers. Standardized testing causes teachers to teach primarily the information for tests and stray from original lesson plans. Critics have questioned if passing the tests indicates academic achievement or if it shows how well teachers are “teaching to the tests.” Teachers begin to lose the chance to teach problem solving skills and the free exchange of ideas in their education. In the words of Richard Kahlenberg, of the Education Century Foundation, “Teaching involves too many variables to be judged effectively by test scores. In addition, such a system encourages teachers to compete against each other rather than to work together” (“Education Reforms Effectiveness” 1). This proves that teachers have begun to compete with each other in certain districts. While competition normally improves people by making them strive to be better, with educators, it leads to a lack of shared resources or ideas between colleagues.

This competition was spurred by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which was an act of Congress to close the educational achievement gap between students with accountability, flexibility, and choice. NCLB was highly popular at first but enthusiasm for it gradually faded. Many teachers have said that they feel the need to prepare students more for the standardized tests. This has become overwhelming and has forced them to neglect valuable lessons and subjects in their classes (“Education Reforms Effectiveness” 1). Tests have changed from seeing where students need extra help, to being used solely for judging teachers’ pay and other monetary things. According to the University of Minnesota study of exit exams, “High school graduates in states that mandated exit exams did not earn more or have a lower unemployment rate than students in states without exit exams.” (“Should We Even Require Exit Exams” 1). This shows how standardized testing doesn’t necessarily improve students’ progress or knowledge. There is no proof that giving standardized tests helps students excessively. The sheer volume of tests does not advance students’ knowledge for post-high school college or careers. By forcing students to take tests, administrators are forcing teachers to prepare students only for those tests. This is taking time away from other important lessons.

Many may argue standardized testing provides benchmarks for parents and teachers to see their students’ knowledge and progress. This data is often used to compare the individual to other students in the class, city, or country. The tests can help identify problem areas in individual students, as well as showing where school districts fall behind in certain fields of teaching. Standardized tests prevent from subjective grading. Many believe they help to eliminate bias among students and help to ensure fairness in grading. But with testing for progress, tests only show a one time snapshot of knowledge. The results do not show how far the student has come, or what they have learned. Standardized tests fit perfectly to a certain set of students who can regurgitate the information they’ve memorized. Tests have become more about memorizing, testing, forgetting the information, and repeating the process over again for the next test. Students are learning to become test-takers by memorizing rules and standards with very little learning. In states that require exit exam testing, the policymakers have set very high standards for the tests. This was designed to ensure that only well-prepared students graduate. However, if standards are set unreasonably high, this harms the percentage of students that graduate.

The end result is the bar being set lower so that the majority of high school seniors can pass and the school looks good. This allows for little to no improvement of education and still prevents a select few from not even graduating (“Continuing Debate on Exit Exams” 1). Standardized testing is unfair because there is no way to give each student the exact same atmosphere. Tests are not personalized to each student. But there is no way to adapt the tests to each student’s needs. One group of students who would benefit from personalized tests is known as the “thinking test-taker.” These are students who take their time to get to the correct answer and are punished with a test time limit. Many teachers advise their students to dumb down and quickly think to get through every question and do better on tests (“Case Against Standardized Testing” 1). There are also external factors that affect the way a student performs on a test.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress found that “the combination of four variables (number of parents living at home, parents educational background, type of community, and poverty rate) accounted for an 89 percent of the difference in states scores across the country.” (“Standardized Testing and Its Victims” 1). This shows that tests can’t account for what happens outside the classroom. Each student goes through something completely different that may affect how they test. Standardized tests don’t always take into consideration disabled or special need students. In 2008, the California Department of Education released data saying that 46% of 4,000 students with disabilities failed that year’s exit exam (“Effects of the California High School Exit Exam” 1). Due to this, an organization representing the rights of disabled individuals initiated a class-action lawsuit against the State of California. A representative of this group, Sid Wolinsky, called the exit exam requirement an “unmitigated disaster” and noted that “you can’t be a janitor in the Oakland School District without a high school diploma.” (“Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas” 1). This shows that denying diplomas to students with learning disabilities robs them of essential work opportunities after high school. There are a very limited set of opportunities for a job if you have not gotten your high school diploma. The increasing number of tests has caused testing anxiety among students.

Previous generations have taken standardized tests but not as many compared to today’s students. Today’s tests are given frequently and play a outsized role in teaching and learning. The United States tests as young as six years old. (“Case Against Standardized Testing” 1). This is despite the fact that many experts who have specialized in childhood education have condemned this idea. It is hard to find any other country who gives multiple choice tests at as young as 6 years old. According to Justin Barterian, Professor of School Psychology at Michigan State University, “Studies estimate that between 10% and 40% of all students experience some level of test anxiety that can surface as early as age seven, and women, minorities, and those with disabilities are more likely to face it.” (Rich 1). Testing anxiety has grown to be a huge issue of educational psychology. Tests produce an inaccurate representation of what students know. The more weight on the test, the more anxiety students are likely to attach to the test, causing less accurate scores to be recorded. Students have fear of failure from the pressure to perform.

Members of the opposing view, such as school district administrators, might think that more practice of tests may reduce students’ stress when having to take them. But to effectively reduce stress would take away more class time and require students taking more tests for practice. If students have poor testing history, they may walk into the test with a negative mindset, and this will influence their performance negatively. Students and teachers alike do not truly benefit from standardized testing. It causes competition between students and teachers, which causes lack of resources and preparation. Teachers are preparing students more for standardized tests than for careers, college, or life in general. Students have unfair testing opportunities and these tests have negatively affected students by placing an undue amount of anxiety on them. There are better ways to assess students’ knowledge besides standardized testing.

Works Cited

1. Alcocer, Paulina. “History of Standardized Testing in the United States.” NEA, National Education Association, www.nea.org/home/66139.htm.
2. Dillon, Sam. ‘Obama Calls for Major Change in Education Law.’ New York Times, March 13, 2010, www.nytimes.com.
3. Hernandez, Nelson. ‘As Seniors Graduate, Debate Continues on Exit Exams.’ Washington Post, May 25, 2009, www.washingtonpost.com.
4. Kohn, Alfie. “The Case against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools.” Teacher Renewal, July 2006, teacherrenewal.westga.edu/file/view/
5. Testing, Testing, Testing.pdf. ‘Obama Administration Education Policy: Are the education reforms enacted by the administration of President Barack Obama (D) effective?’ Issues & Controversies, Infobase Learning, 5 Apr. 2010,http://icof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?ID=1958.
6. ‘Parties Settle Disabilities Assessment Lawsuit.’ Alaska Department of Education & Early Development, August 2, 2004, www.eed.state.ak.us.
7. Reardon, Sean, et al. ‘Effects of the California High School Exit Exam on Student Persistence, Achievement, and Graduation.’ Institute for Research on Education Policy & Practice, April 21, 2009, www.stanford.edu/group/irepp.
8. Rich, John D., et al. “The Relationship between Deductive Reasoning Ability, Test Anxiety, and Standardized Test Scores.” Journal of Research in Education, 30 Apr. 2011, eric.ed.gov/?q=standardized AND test&pg=5&id=EJ923912.
9. ‘Standardized High School Exit Exams: Should all U.S. states require high school students to pass standardized exit exams to graduate?’Issues & Controversies, Infobase Learning, 16 Oct. 2009,http://icof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?ID=1980.
10. “Standardized Tests – ProCon.org.” ProConorg Headlines, standardizedtests.procon.org/. ‘Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas.’ National Center for Fair and Open Testing, May 2, 2008, www.fairtest.org..

The history of education in America’s colonial and early republic was a nationwide transition to a common public school powered by multiple factors. One major factor was the need for a democracy to be self-autonomous and for the population to be educated to keep a stable government. Another ruling factor was that people want to pass on their beliefs and traditions. This drive to pass on the former way of life led to the integration of religion in schools causing the discourse between different ethnic groups and religious groups. One of the most important driving forces in the creation of a public school was the idea that from equality of man there is a need to educate to bring the individuals full potential. In all of these reasons for schools and the effect they implemented they show how the modern school was made and how we can react to problems that we face in America’s education system today.

In colonial America, there were 3 distinct types of educational institutions. For the common public, there were the common schools in which its foremost goal was to teach students to read and write. Grammar schools were for the elite and their goal was to create the leaders of the colony and confirm the elite’s status. Colleges, including Harvard, were a higher education that allowed common people to obtain a higher class and to confirm the elite’s status. Common schools were mainly used to instruct students using repetition and memorization. One of the main manuals or primers of the day was the New England Primer, which comprised repetitive Christian phrases and prayers. They likewise used an instrument called a hornbook, that was comprised of a piece of wood or horn-shaped into a paddle that was engraved with the alphabet, phonics, and a prayer. Common schools were first ordered mandatory by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the ‘Old Deluder Satan’ Massachusetts Act of 1647. It ordered all communities of more than 50 households to assign a teacher to conduct a school to impart the ability to read and write. This law of the land lost its effect in 1780 after the drafting of the constitution of Massachusetts, which included public education for the state. The main goal of common schools was to educate the population on the fundamentals of society, so they can properly obey their superiors with letters or documents and to educate the population in reading, so they can read the scripture of religion, which was namely Christianity. As quoted from the New England Primer, “A: In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all. B: Heaven to find; the Bible mind. C: Christ crucify’d, for sinners dy’d”. This excerpt was memorized by the student and displays how the only task for these schools was to teach the basics of Christianity, and a rudimentary ability to read and write. These schools were funded by local funds and required support from local taxpayers.

Grammar schools were designated for the elite. Their studies mainly comprised of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other various languages that that would help confirm the status of the scholars. The study of classical writers, at the time, was believed to develop character in aspiring pupils. Some writers and pieces include Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ and Plato’s ‘Republic’. These grammar schools were funded by paid tuition by the student.

Another emerging institution in colonial America were colleges. The first of these establishments was Harvard College. Founded in 1636 in Massachusetts, Harvard College’s mission was to “…to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity” and to ensure an educated ministry for the colony. An uneducated ministry was feared because an illiterate leader and an ignorant minister were predicted to destroy any church. Over time the number of graduates in theology diminished and by the American Revolution, a small portion of alumina became ministers. The next college of the time was the College of William and Mary. Opening its doors in 1693, the college was set to “inspire lifelong learning, generate new knowledge, and expand understanding”. The College of William and Mary grounds were located in Virginia, and its alumina mainly comprised of Virginian aristocrats. Other colleges that followed include St. John’s College, Yale University, Washington College, University of Pennsylvania, Moravian College, University of Delaware, Princeton University, and Washington and Lee University.

In the creation of the new republic, a new societal drive was sparked. Now kindled in the freedom of Americas individuals’ equality and refinement were valued, and people sought to create a better life for themselves to fulfill the “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. In this people sought to create a refurbished country of educated intellectuals that would help govern the democratic republic that was newly created. Their reasoning was supported by the idea that rulers needed to be of the people in a democracy, and that in this republic there needed to be educated to teach the subjects to choose their rulers wisely. The whole government was set on the idea that the country was educated and the rulers had the merit of the people. To suffice this need for teaching the idea of a publicly funded education was created.

One of the leaders in this new ideology was a man by the name of William Channing. Channing was born in April 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island. An educated Unitarian with an M.A. from Harvard. He was a proclaimer of a self-made person in which education was a way to create one’s self and find the image of God in one’s self to find his full potential. He also advocated for a universal education because the treatment of public learning above another would be a crime against nature. Channing was one of the leading reformers in the Transcendentalism movement, which was a belief that to find the meaning of life and nature you must look not out, but into yourself.

Another reformer of the time was Horace Mann, who was born on May 4, 1796. Mann was the first Sectary of Education in Massachusetts and visited various schools in Massachusetts to record living conditions in each school. Mann once concluded that the state took better care of its livestock than its students: “You crowd from 40 to 60 children into that ill-constructed shell of a building, there to sit in the most uncomfortable seats that could be contrived, expecting that with the occasional application of the birch they will then come out educated for manhood or womanhood…?”. An advocate for self- improvement, he believed that learning should not only be a collection of grammar and spelling, but a way to develop one’s view of the world. He believed that learning should be a way to cultivate a min into a budding vessel of untapped potential. Another emerging belief was the view of imagination as a beauty that needed learning to cultivate and poetry was an emerging. Manning also supported the idea of giving advanced mathematics not to use in real life, but to enhance the ability to learn and understand.

Thomas Jefferson led the coalition to bring forth a public school system that habited a system in where any student could rise to high standards and become a leader. Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, in the family of an aristocrat planter and was the third president of the United States. His system started with a common reading and writing school in which its most prestigious student would raise to higher education. With the leading students of the secondary school chosen, they would move to a college or university to create the ruling and leading people of society. These ideas were pushed in ‘A Bill for Establishing a System of Public Education’, written together with Orestes Brownson. This bill was countered by the fact a large portion of the bill’s funds was supported by the University of Virginia near Jefferson’s estate, Monticello. Jefferson’s opponent, Charles Mercer, wanted a state education; however, Jefferson wanted a local education to keep the people’s power, and Brownson wanted local control to avoid religious diversity and political discourse between parents and the state. Along with other reformers including Horace Mann and William Channing. They saw education as a way of bringing a person’s true potential and creating a more perfect being.

These schools were dependent on student funds and depended on social opinion to stay in business. The differentiating economies in the North and South created a divide in teaching policies and institutions. The South was predominately southern planters and yeoman farmers, poor and self-sufficient farmer, while the North was a small farm country with a booming manufacturing industry. In the South, during the late 18th early 19th century, most of the population was either planter, yeoman farmer, or pioneer. Most of the parents that could afford education for their children, in which most were plantation families, hired a tutor to teach them. Tutors taught a variety of classics to the student and helped shape a student that could not only read and write, but also be a leader. Much of the subject that these tutors covered were classical pieces and various languages that help confirm the societal status of the individual. For a child of a lower class, there was either to take the farm of their family and continue their work or to take an apprenticeship under a tradesman or artisan.

Schools in the North for low to middle-class families were a place to learn the basic fundamental of reading, writing, and sometimes math. These classes were mainly a way of educating the masses in reading and writing to be able to properly read the Bible and communicate by letters to the presiding government, which in turn can properly govern its citizens.

Between 1830 and the Civil War, the taxation in the South was significantly lower than in the north. This was caused mostly by the economy in which planters did not need public schools and the poor people had other problems to focus on. There was a movement from parent-paid tuition to taxing the country for the public’s education. This led to highly tax plantation owners and poor untaxed workers in the South resisting new taxes.

The life of a teacher as it is today was a constant battle between the need to control the room of students and the ability to teach the individuals the material and life lessons. Many teachers of that time resorted to crude punishments and controlling teaching. Many of the lessons were repetitive passages for memorizing, which led to many students becoming uninterested in the teachings. This led to punishment to keep students focused by the fear of the rod. Early teachers of the time did not see the teaching profession as a career, but as a way to make extra money. Men did it from graduation to their career, while many women did it to make a little money before marriage. Massachusetts opened a normal school for women to become teachers after a ten-thousand-dollar ($297,407.53 inflation-adjusted) donation from Edmond Dwight. There were 3 chosen spots for the schools and the first one opened in 1839. Over twenty-one years, thirty-four normal schools opened in sixteen states.

As hard as a teacher’s life was, a student’s life was harder. The student of this time kept a constant fear of reprimand, which led to the idea that learning was a task, not enjoyment. Since communication in America at the time was minimal, much of the subjects were outdated. Some of the conditions that the students and teachers faced in the schoolhouses were crowded buildings and ill-constructed schoolhouses. These schools of the past had a strict code of conduct on their students. Many were physically abused for their misbehaving’s, which led to many memorizing the subject material out of fear instead of leaning out of curiosity.

The new frontier of the west called for teachers in the east to come and fill the role. This led to the formation of teaching schools in America. Another forming idea in America was the formation of a feminine teaching position, and that teaching was for a woman that fit the homemaker to suet the children. These findings created long-standing teaching traditions as in a graded class, a class set by age and subject, and a uniform nationwide set of rules and guidelines in teaching. Another common practice we take for granted is testing. Before testing there were exhibitions in which students would recite poems, literature, or speeches to an audience. These exhibitions measured a student’s growth in the schools of the time. With more and more standardization of schools there needed to be a way to measure the knowledge of the student. Testing became a new way to test the knowledge of the student with the advent of easily accessible paper. After the Civil War, testing spread like wildfire and became a common practice in America.

The differentiating of denominations in schools led to conflicts between schools over whether religion should be taught in school. Many northern Protestant schools were different from the Catholic immigrants. Catholics argued over the anti-Catholic sentiment in public schools and asked for a separate school for Catholics, which led to public backlash against the use of public funds. Another political conflict in schools was the teaching of slaves or free blacks because of the resistance of slave owners that feared educated slaves are prone to revolt and sloth.

There are several themes in the education of today that have bloomed from the chaotic time in early America. One growing idea was age grading, in which grades determined the subject and teacher. This also led to the idea of sectional teaching, in which teachers taught a specific study with a division of labor. This was supported by the idea of progressive learning, in which subjects build on one another. These ways of creating an efficient factory-like school were at the forefront of the reformer’s ideas of the time. Lastly, terms were lengthened and many schools increased their yearly terms by a fourth. On average, in Massachusetts from 1840 to 1875 there was an increase from 148.8 days a year to 176.5 days a year. One lasting conflict is the discourse between the teachings of home and the subject matter of school. There were many heated debates on whether to keep Bibles in school because of conflicting versions and denominations. These conflicts have led some schools to ban the reading of the Bible. Another common theme was the fact that growing as a learner and a person is different from a repetition of words and phrases.

On the eve of the Civil War, there was a slow progression to a public educational system that was either mandatory or encouraged. Common schools were found across the nation and had become a life ritual. At the advent of the Civil War, America’s population was subdued by the war from the need to support the war, the need to support the weakened community and family, or economic constraints. These constraints led to a ‘reset’ in the US economy. Another factor was the 13th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution, freeing about 4 million black slaves, leading to “equal protection under the law” and black rudimentary education, which was illegal before the Reconstruction era. What emerges from the rubble is a newly refurbished republic, ready to create a strong public education that was unobtained by the fathers before them. This is embodied by the percentage of schools before and after. This set the stage for the major changes in infrastructure during the Reconstruction and led to the schools of today.

Through this look into the education of early America, we can see how the leaders of yesterday planed for the education of today. This brief history displays the motives for the advances in teaching. This history arises a new question, what does this education show what it means to be American and how did we become who we are from learning.

“Through liberty and justice for all!”. Each school day, these words leave the mouths of thousands of children across America. They stand up tall, hand over their hearts, declaring that this nation – our nation – is a place that provides for them, where they have a voice. It is a place of equality that is worthy of each of their undying allegiance. Each of these children pledges their devotion to a democracy, and in return it is expected that the democracy devote itself to them. Unfortunately, these children are often betrayed by the pledge they make. While America strives to provide the promised ‘liberty and justice for all’, it often lets down those very ideals it is meant to uphold. The issue these children face is twofold. On one hand, they are growing and learning in a system that does not operate according to true democratic principles. On the other, they are never instructed on what it means to live in a democracy, and as such can do nothing to improve things for themselves or for future generations. The movement for democratic education aims to change this discrepancy. By implementing policies based upon the six main tenets of democratic education: equality, important knowledge, nature of authority, inclusiveness, participatory decision-making (Knight and Pearl, 2000); schools can transform themselves into the safe places that our nation promises to its children. When put into practice, democratic education becomes service projects, inclusive classrooms, and independent students. By using these principles, a teacher can transform their classroom into a place of true liberty for each and every child.

Democratic Education

Democratic education is a theory founded in American ideals, but its aims extend beyond the national borders. The purpose of the movement is to make students into active citizens not only of their communities, but of the entire world around them. According to the Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA), the main goal is as follows: “By supporting the individual development of each young person within a caring community, democratic education helps young people learn about themselves, engage with the world around them, and become positive and contributing members of society” (Bennis, 2010). While the exact names and numbers vary between sources, advocates of democratic education rely on several central ‘pillars’ that must be present in order for democratic education to be effective. These include equality, priority, authority, inclusiveness, and participation.

Equality is the first and most obvious of these tenants. It is the central idea in democracy itself, and as such is absolutely vital when it comes to educating young citizens. In the classroom though, this concept must move beyond a simple idea. While it is quite simple to say ‘we treat all of our students equally’, democratic education requires that a school has specific policies in place to ensure that students have equal opportunity, equal voice, and equal power within the school community. This means that every student must have access to school events, clubs, etc., but also that the school must strive to provide accommodations for any student who may need them. The school must provide for and protect its diverse students through its anti-bullying measures, school lunch programs, and any school-wide rule that may affect its attendees. “Schools should ensure that all children – regardless of their socioeconomic status, gender, race, ethnicity, or religion – receive an education that prepares them to exercise their rights and fulfill responsibilities as citizens” (Gutman and Ben-Porath, 2014).

Priority refers to the importance of certain knowledge when it comes to curriculum. In democratic education, it specifically requires educating students on what democracy is and how to utilize their given rights within one. Taking political sides in the classroom is certainly a horrible thing to do to students, but politics themselves should not be left entirely out of the classroom. While a teacher should remain neutral, the issues that surround the nation and the world should be open for discussion in the classroom. Children need to be informed about their own society – the real truth of their society, not the dumbed-down version that says everything is and will always be alright. This means instilling independent thought and critical thinking skills in students. After all, “the ability to deliberate about political matters is key to a diverse citizenry’s ability to assess democratic education the laws that bind them, to hold their representatives accountable, and to respect one another amidst ongoing disagreement” (Gutman and Ben-Porath, 2014).

“Rights, like all dimensions of democracy, are not to be discovered through Foucaultian archeological digs; rather, they are created by students in interaction with each other with the help of persuasive and negotiable authority” (Knight and Pearl, 2000). The key part of this phrase is ‘persuasive and negotiable’. This is what advocates for democratic education look for in an authority figure. This means teachers, principals, politicians – anyone involved in the shaping of student lives. By necessity, these authority figures must have an open-door policy when it comes to negotiation. They must believe in and fight for children while being open to their ideas. This also requires a certain level of diversity among leaders. Not only do children need representation from those who live in their community and understand their perspectives, but leaders whom they feel they can talk and relate too.

Inclusiveness ties in well to the question of diverse leadership, while also relating back to equality. This, however, extends further beyond direct policy-making. There is a difference between receiving accommodation and being made to feel included. Schools that adhere to democratic education must do both. This can be something as simple as showing different types of people on the classroom posters, or as involved as shifting an entire curriculum. School is a place of learning, but it is also a place of living and a place of feeling. Inclusive schools take this into account and value their students’ emotional development as much as their academics.

The last and possibly most important of the pillars is participation. Every student must have a voice – a loud, determined, and informed voice. “Democratic education sees young people not as passive recipients of knowledge, but rather as active co-creators of their own learning” (Bennis, 2010). Co-creating a school experience goes far beyond the usual ‘student council’ type responsibilities expected of students. Schools need to open up their policies to student input and grant them the responsibility to craft their own community. Teachers can do this as well by allowing students to influence the classroom rules. Students should be taught to speak up about the issues that are important to them and instructors should be required to listen. Everyone having a say, regardless of where they are in any chain of power, is one of the most powerful ideals behind the founding of America, and our educational system should strive for no less than to be the perfect incarnation of those ideals.

Examples in Literature and Experience

Since the movement began, many schools have taken on the task of raising active citizens. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum (ASCD), a non-profit organization composed of educators, superintendents, teachers, and principals from more than one hundred and twenty-eight different countries, is one of the biggest groups of activists when it comes to democratic education. Alongside the First Amendment Center, the organization began the First Amendment Schools Initiative. This program offered grants to schools that would take on a democratic education program, as well as offering resources, sample school policies, lesson plans, and classes for teachers. Ashby, the principal of one of these recipient schools, explained their new policies: “I realized I had been running a benign dictatorship. Part of this project’s purpose is to teach students how to participate in a democracy by letting them participate”. Students at Ashby’s school were both allowed and encouraged to petition for school policy changes, joined a review board alongside parents to discuss the school’s uniform policy, and run their own newspaper reporting on community issues and developing plans on what the school itself can do to help (Delisio, 2011).

I myself attended a high school that based much of its policy on the concept of democratic education. James Madison Preparatory School, a charter high school in Tempe, Arizona, prides itself on constructing an environment that allows student expression and input, while training them to become great citizens. Oddly enough, the school has a rather strict ‘business-casual’ dress code, despite dress codes being a highly controversial point in the debate of school policy versus student expression. Their reasoning behind it though is rooted in a desire to prepare students for the wider world, as the policy is meant to instruct students on how to make a good impression in a working environment. The school takes time every day to have whole-school assemblies where teachers prepare presentations on everything from broad concepts of character to interesting facts to current events. Students are allowed to present as well, and seniors at the school are required to do so at least once on a topic of their choice. The school policies in and of themselves are also open to student input, though the faculty reserves the right to ‘veto’ a bill (to their credit, I did not witness a faculty ‘veto’ in my four years there). The first two days of school are dedicated entirely to allowing students to draft ‘bills’ for programs they would like, clubs, dances, service projects, etc., which are voted on by the entire student body and reviewed by elected representatives from each homeroom. Students also had access to a court (composed of fellow students) before which students who were written up would appear and either admit that they broke the rules and accept their punishment or challenge the allegations against them. While the school’s security cameras would sometimes reveal that the student was lying (resulting in harsher punishment, usually community service), the student had the opportunity to fight accusations they felt were unfair, and it was entirely possible that one the student’s side was heard that they would win their case.

Probably the most impactful motion that the school made in line with their democratic education philosophy was allowing the students to draft the school constitution. This they trusted entirely to the students, and this document was binding school policy that would affect the school and community for as long as it was open. They wanted the students to help them build the kind of school they wanted to attend, and it turned out to be an excellent and influential plan. I do believe that my experience with this school changed my life. The school did lack in diverse representation, as its small (about 100 high school students) body consisted mostly of white, suburban dwelling children due to its location. While it did go to an extreme with its democratic policies, James Madison Preparatory School could easily serve as a model for a more inclusive, democratic, and equitable school system.

Classroom Application

In accordance with this theory, my future classroom will be directly influenced by the students within it. I will begin with the first day, focusing heavily on equality and inclusiveness. I will make it clear to my students that this classroom is a safe place for them, where they are welcome to share their passions, their opinions, and their experiences. More importantly, I will make that clear by maintaining this attitude and offering a listening ear throughout the school year. I will have the students construct their own list of school rules for the classroom. I will ask them for their ideas and input, write down the suggested rules on the board (if a rule that a student suggests goes against school policy, I will take the time to explain to them why that policy is in place and why we cannot use the rule), and then have the students vote on which rules should be implemented in the classroom.

Students will be allowed and encouraged to talk about problems going on in the community. In fact, I will likely hold class meetings in the morning where students can bring up and freely talk about issues affecting their lives. When something is brought up, I will then open the floor to suggestions as to what we as a class can do to help. Assignments, school-specific issues, class specific issues, and even my own lessons and teaching methods will all be open for discussion during this time as well. These ten-to-fifteen-minute meetings will hopefully not only make students feel like they are included and have power within the room, but also create a sense of unrivalled classroom community. My main concern with this idea is that these sorts of open discussions will become isolated to ‘meeting times’, but I will try to make it clear that I am always there to listen and will work with students whenever I am free.

In lesson plans themselves, I promise to constantly analyze my class for understanding and comprehension, and to be flexible with my teaching styles and with my topics. If there is something the students have taken particular interest in, I will do my best to integrate it into the curriculum. I will offer reflections on units and projects, allowing students to evaluate me as a teacher, along with evaluating themselves and how they believe they performed during the lesson.

My class could have bi-weekly or monthly service projects that are chosen by the students. Not only could this be used as a launching point to talk about community and society, but it encourages children to look into their own community and learn about the needs of those around them. It has also been proven that students have higher motivation to complete projects that they have a part in designing. If the class size is small enough, I could have each student come up with a way to help the community. If it is too large, perhaps they could work in pairs. I have also considered offering prizes for helping others, but I have some reservations about this since I do not want to alienate children who have fewer opportunities to ‘help out’ outside of school and I do not want to turn service into a purely external motivation.

When it comes to discipline in my classroom, I do want to offer children the opportunity to give their side of the issue and have some input into what their punishment will be. When a student misbehaves to the point of having to punish them, I will write down specifically which rule they broke and why it was unsafe or inconsiderate behavior. I will have the student come and talk to me for a moment during free time and allow them to share their side of what happened and encouraging them to be honest. I will have a list of consequences for misbehavior and allow the child to choose which one they wish to accept. This allows children to have their own agency even within the realm of discipline. I will make it clear that I still love and respect the student, and am open to hearing their perspective even if it doesn’t absolve them of their misbehavior. I want my students to feel cared for, respected, and in control of their own education.

Conclusion

Democratic education offers a turning point for the American education system. It shifts the focus of teaching from an instructor dispensing information like a vending machine to an actively engaged and student-centered one. At this moment, the daily pledge that students make to their country simply isn’t a true claim. Yet it could be, and those who advocate for a more democratic system of education are striving to make it so. As future teachers, it is vital that we consider our students. We must fight in our schools for equality, dispense truth and important knowledge, examine our own biases and make ourselves into reliable authority figures, strive to make each child feel included, and accept their ideas and listen to their stories. Only when every teacher works toward these goals can our nation’s education system truly represent the democracy that America’s greatest idealists long for it to be. When we as a society respect our students and teach them to be active citizens, they will go on to truly achieve liberty and justice for all.

What’s Wrong with the American Education System?

In many fields, the United States is often referred to as the world’s best nation. It may be one of the greatest, but in education, it’s far from it. Of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 34 nations in total, it ranks only 14th in art, 23rd in science, and 24th in literacy. Despite America’s status as a country, America’s education is failing because of the large emphasis on technology entering the classroom, decreasing government funding, and the flaws of the students, parents, and teachers.

Parents have a very massive influence on a kid’s education, which leads people to blame the parents for an inadequate schooling system. The MetLife Study of an American Teacher says, “Parents report that schools with high parent engagement perform better on a range of measures.” Parent engagement usually pressures students to do well and meet their parents’ expectations. Unfortunately, in recent years parent involvement has diminished. The same study concludes: there are significant declines in the percentages of teachers and parents reporting that most or many parents take too little interest in their children’s education, fail to motivate their children or leave their children alone too much after school. When parents stop emphasizing the importance of education, a student is less likely to excel in their school work. The lack of motivation from their parents can lead to students who do not greatly concern themselves in their education. The outcome will most likely be lower grades and students who do not care about their school work.

Teachers’ demeanors can offer assistance or harm their students’ inspiration, accomplishments, and well-being. Recent studies further emphasize that educators’ negative demeanors can hinder scholarly accomplishment and supplement students’ mental state and physical indications of stress. Instructors who utilize mortification or mockery can leave a child feeling disparaged. Teaching characterized by fear and terrorizing can be destructive to the student’s future academic success. Teachers who are harsh in their display of authority or are indifferent toward their students or lessons can leave a lingering feeling of negativity with the student.

Another key issue with the American Education System is the lack of government funding in some states. School funding varies due to the fact that more than half of the financial support for public schools derive from the local property taxes. This means that the amount of funding that the community provides varies according to their wealth. This is only the case when is comes to America. Other countries provide equal per-student funding from general tax revenues for all schools throughout the country. When there is inadequate funding for the school it will show in academics. Schools that are predominantly white and upper class have the best programs, with great buildings and amazing academic scores. However, schools with the majority being minorities are almost always run down and lackin in more than one way. Whether it be not having certain programs or the buildings being in bad shape, students that come from poverty stricken communities tend to have lower academic scores. The government funds on things that do not need more money in. For example, Louisiana State University has the money to build a $28 million dollar football locker room but does not have the money to fix its library. I ask myself, “Why is our education system more focused on profits from sport teams, textbook manufacturers, and other groups than the quality of students’ education?”

Research shows that money matters for student achievement. Funding for education should not only go into the academics portion of the school but also for resources that students can utilize to help themselves. At the moment we have an institution that is having a hard time meeting the funding requirements for academics let alone support networks at schools. For example, in the article “Homeless on Campus” Eleanor J. Bader speaks about how common it is for college students to be homeless and how much more difficult their lives become. This topic is something that does not get enough coverage by college institutions. Bader gives examples of many students struggle with homelessness and talks about how they overcame those struggles. She brings light onto this national problem and suggests that colleges should do more to help these battling with homelessness and other non academic issues. Mary Jean le Tendre, a retired Department of Education administrator and creator of the LeTendre Education Fund stated, “As far as I know, no college has ever asked for help in reaching homeless students”. I agree with her and I too believe that funding for schools should help with problems such as this one. Colleges should offer more affordable housing and cheaper meal plans for their students. Not only will this benefit the struggling student, but it would also increase that college’s academic scoring since obstacles that stop struggling students from increasing their academic scores will be out of the way. Now we just have to tackle technology.

Technology can be seen as helping force in education, but can also be regarded as an issue within classrooms. Many educators view technology as a helping source for students. It has expanded access to education because now books, images, and other information are available at one’s fingertips due to the internet. In the traditional classroom, the educator is the essential wellspring of information, and the students inactively get it. This model of the instructor as the ‘sage on the stage has been in academics for quite a while, and it is still used to this day. However, now in numerous classrooms today we see the instructor’s job moving to the ‘guide on the side’ as students assume greater liability for their own gathering and learning of information.

Technology can be a great way to have students on the same level at school, but what about at home? Some students have no access to internet at home and inevitably fall behind. Also, technology can enhance cheating. Imagine how much easier it is to cheat now with the increasing use of technology. Cheating in the education system is not new. As long as there have been some sort of academic assignment, there has been cheating. The way that cheating looks have changed over time, though, particularly now that technology has made it easier than ever. Cheating in classrooms is a big reason why technology is an issue with education, but so are our phones.

In the article, “Does Texting Affect Writing?”, the author Michaela Cullington describes texting as an activity that everyone takes part in multiple times a day. The author then goes on to describe what textspeak is and how it is being used. In the following paragraphs, Cullington depicts teachers’ concern with textspeak leaking into their students’ writing. She then provides examples from teacher’s experience with students having textspeak ooze onto their essays. The way we text and converse with our friends on our phones can cause problems with our learning and can lead to us messing with our academics.

The American Education System is not perfect by any means. Technology makes it easier for students to fall behind and cheat. Parents’ and teachers’ attitudes can have lasting effects on students and their academic scores. Government funding for schools should be equal throughout all schools and help struggling students on all campuses. As a nation, we need to ask ourselves, “how can we, as a nation, improve this messed up organization we call the education system?”

Work Cited

1. Admin, ERN. “The Effects of Unequal School Funding.” Educational Research Newsletter and Webinars, 30 Sept. 2002, https://www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/the-effects-of-unequal-school-funding/.
2. Bullock, Richard H., et al. “Homeless on Campus.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, pp. 764–769.
3. Bullock, Richard H., et al. “Does Texting Affect Writing .” The Norton Field Guide to Writing, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, pp. 131–138.

Should Exams be outlawed in favor of another assignment?

Exams often do little more than measure a person’s ability to take exams.

A test or examination is an assignment intended to measure a test-takes knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness or classification in many other subjects.

Imagine if failing a test was considered to be a failure for your whole life.

Even though standardized tests can help schools evaluate progress. However, scores do not provide a true picture of a student ability. So therefore it should be outlawed.

Standardized tests are special examinations designed to measure students ’ intellectual competency or academic potential. These tests, which feature strict uniformity concerning content, administration, and scoring, have become a key part of the American education system since they were first introduced in the nineteenth century. Some of the most well-known and widely taken standardized tests include college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT and licensing exams like the United States Medical Licensing Examination. In addition to offering information on individual students’ abilities, standardized tests provide valuable insight on the overall academic performance of entire student bodies. Such information is frequently used to ensure accountability among schools and teachers . Standardized testing is a controversial subject, however, with critics typically arguing that such testing is too often misleading, ineffective, and even biased. ‘Standardized Testing.’ Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2017. Student Resources In Context.

Standardized testing is a flawed concept that has many disadvantages.

Standardized testing fails to yield any valuable information about students’ long-term academic growth. Worse yet, pressure to perform well on standardized tests puts an incredible amount of stress on students and teachers alike that only serves to inhibit learning ‘Standardized Testing.’ Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2017. Student Resources In Context. This shows that standardized testing are ineffective when testing a person’s intelligence because, if you’re taking a test under so much stress and pressure, how is that an effective way to determine how smart you are ? When people are under pressure they do not perform really well, this is scientifically approved. Some kids do well with a certain level of stress. Other students fold. Brain research suggests that too much stress is psychologically and physically harmful. And when stress becomes overwhelming, the brain shifts into a fight or flight response, where it is impossible to engage in the higher-order thinking processes that are necessary to respond correctly to the standardized test questions. So standardized testing is obviously not the way and therefore it should be banned.

Even though standardized tests also tend to be more objective than tests that teachers create and administer directly to their own students. But it fails to yield any valuable information about students’ long-term academic growth. So a test that tend to be more objective that teachers tests also has no impact on a student’s academic “Callahan, R. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency: A study of the social forces that have shaped the administration of the public schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press”. This is definitely not the best way of testing a student’s ability because you wouldn’t know if it’s effective if it doesn’t have any impact on the students and therefore should be outlawed.

Standardized tests (SAT) are ”incredibly imprecise” when it comes to measuring academic ability and how well students will perform in college “Study of Standardized Admissions Tests Is Big Draw at College Conference. The New York Times. (Sept. 29, 2008) Lexile Measure: 1460L. COPYRIGHT 2008 The New York Times Company”.

It is not worth it. The SAT teaches children a narrow range of test taking skills, not ones that will prepare them for selective colleges, entrepreneurship or active citizenship. The SAT teaches kids to view reading as a meaningless assignment rather than a source of ideas or inspiration.Tampio, Nicholas. ‘Commentary: Time to Ditch the SAT.’ The Report, from U.S. News & World Report, 13 Apr. 2018. Student Resources In Context. Well what is the point of the SAT, is it fair to let a test determine whether or not if you should get into college or not, or whether if you’re smart or not ? This just doesn’t make sense and standardized testing needs to be banned.

Standardized achievement tests are deeply flawed, and test-based accountability has been terribly damaging to public education. “The paradox of standardized testing Phi Delta Kappan. (Nov. 2017) Lexile Measure: 1360L. COPYRIGHT 2017 Phi Delta Kappa.”

This is outrageous because some students know that their test scores may affect their future lives so they do whatever they can just to pass them, including cheating and taking performance drugs. It shouldn’t have to be like this there are many other ways, standardized testing is not an option so therefore it should be outlawed.

Standardized testing have negative impacts on students mentally by bringing their moral down which could possibly leads to worst. Standardized testing creates winners and losers. The losers are those who get labeled as “ low students, learning disabled kids, reluctant learners.” Even the winners are trapped by being caught up on a treadmill of achievement that they must stay on at all costs through at least sixteen years of schooling, and more often twenty years. The losers suffer loss of self-esteem, and the damage of “low expectations”. The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion (Tarcher-Perigee). Students are already going through so much stress during senior year, more specifically getting into college. So they should not be challenged again that with Standardized test to determine if they’re going to college or not or to lower their self esteem if they have a bad score so Therefore the standardized testing most definitely be banned.

Throughout the text, there was more than enough evidence to prove that standardized testing does not provide a true picture of a student ability and should be outlawed. We went over many effects and disadvantages such as failing to yield any valuable information about students’ long-term academic growth, negative impacts on students mentally by bringing their moral.

So now do you want to do things a different way, try a new method or do you want to keep abusing the future of this country by stressing them out and lowering their self esteem?

Throughout the years, standardized testing has been regarded as the way to measure how much a student has learned over a period of time. It is seen as such because it provides an objective and reliable measure of student achievement, which plays a huge role on major decisions about the student’s future, such as grade promotion, high school graduation and higher education opportunities. Many people argue whether standardized testing is really effective, or is it just affecting the prospect of our future society.

On one hand, standardized testing is useful because it is an impartial and objective way to measure a student’s academic progress. It is the same test for everyone, therefore being more reliable since it is neutral and unbiased. This is not the case when it comes to the testing done by individual schools, since in every school the testing would be done differently, consequently being unfair to base the student’s future on results that emerge on inaccurate testing. Furthermore, since it is the same for everyone, it is also inclusive and non-discriminatory since it is applied equivalently to all students.

Additionally, standardized testing has proven to have a positive effect on student achievement. According to The Effect of Testing on Achievement, 1910-2010, a peer-reviewed analysis composed of several studies on student testing for over 100 years, 93% of studies found “the effect of testing on achievement to be moderately to strongly positive.” This is most likely because students feel motivated to do well on tests, so they strive to get a good grade and therefore obtain high academic achievement.

On the other hand, standardized testing scores can impact the student’s confidence. The test scores are usually interpreted as a way to judge a student’s ability. According to The Sandbox News, “there are many factors that can impact a student’s test score negatively, including stress, lack of language skills, and lack of special needs accommodations.” As a former test-taker myself, I can vouch for that by saying that tests usually put me under a lot of stress. I would pull all-nighters all the time studying for them, and while taking them I would have a hard time remembering the material due to the lack of sleep I put myself through because I was afraid to fail. Moreover, I found myself upset whenever I did not do so good. For example, I took the paper-based TOEFL and I remember getting the minimum score needed to apply to a university in the United States. It felt like it was all just pure luck, and all my English language abilities were not as good as I thought they were. It took me a while to be confident about my English again, not letting a three-digit number define who I am.

Additionally, according to Anne Trafton from MIT News, “in a study of nearly 1,400 eighth-graders in the Boston public school system, the researchers found that some schools have successfully raised their students’ scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). However, those schools had almost no effect on students’ performance on tests of fluid intelligence skills, such as working memory capacity, speed of information processing, and ability to solve abstract problems.” Students are being trained to have automatic responses, but when it comes to seeing beyond and critically solving a problem, they don’t succeed. Standardized testing just feeds this problem to the education system, making kids less prepared for the intelligence they will need in the other aspects of their life.

Personally, I believe that standardized testing is really limitative when it comes to showing what someone is and what they can do. I understand where people come from when they say that it is the quickest way to measure what a student knows, but at the same time I feel like it is just a system made by adults that have forgotten what being a student is like. Letting a score define what you know is like letting one simple action dictate the type of person you are. It feels as if we are letting students be quickly judged by a number rather than give them an opportunity to hear them out.

As standard as the test is, people are usually not. Everyone is different and all the circumstances around the testing process are different as well. Former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama once said “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.” She attended Princeton, even though she did not do well on her standardized test. Nevertheless, she achieved great things such as being the first lady, a successful writer, a Harvard graduate, and overall one of the most successful women of the United States. And if she did not do well on her test, but still managed to be who she is today, then what is the point of standardized testing?

Works Cited

1. Ershova, Sofia. “Standardized Tests Are Inaccurate.” Standardized Tests Are Inaccurate |, 11 Feb. 2017, sandbox.spcollege.edu/index.php/2017/02/standardized-tests-are-inaccurate/.
2. Phelps, Richard P. “The Effect of Testing on Achievement: Meta-Analyses and Research Summary, 1910–2010 Source List, Effect Sizes, and References for Quantitative Studies.” The Achievement Effects of Standardized Testing: 2011, www.nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Resources/QuantitativeList.htm.
3. Trafton, Anne. “Even When Test Scores Go up, Some Cognitive Abilities Don’t.” MIT News, 11 Dec. 2013, news.mit.edu/2013/even-when-test-scores-go-up-some-cognitive-abilities-dont-1211.
4. V, Jonathan, and Weekly Standard. “Michelle’s America.” The Weekly Standard, 19 Feb. 2008, www.weeklystandard.com/jonathan-v-last/michelles-america.

The American education system has become a corrupt institution and will soon fail all together. Every since elementary school, I can recall students receiving different treatment than I did, but I dismissed it because it was always in my favor. I have always excelled in my courses, so I assumed that was why I had so many opportunities. However, I began to witness more and more students at my level were falling behind. I didn’t know what the reasons were or why it was being done, but I knew that something was wrong. Unfortunitally, this observation has been proven to be an ongoing problem across the country. It is clear that race, gender, and income all have negative affects on the quality of student’s education. Either people have made steryotypes against their abilities, or their family’s income prevents them from having the same opportunities as others. One out of every six students attend a “dropout factory”, which is a high school having a high proportion of students who drop out before graduating. Thirty-two percent of minority students attend a dropout factory, compared to only eight percent of white students. In a 2010 statistic, only sixty-four percent of Latino students graduated high school. Children are taught not to judge each other, especially for the things they cannot control; and yet it’s okay when schools do it. Students that don’t fall under at least one of the categories of wealthy, white, or male, tend to have limited opportunities in education.

The article, “Puzzling out PISA: What Can International Comparisons Tell Us about American Education?” (November 2014), written by William Schmidt and Nathan Burroughs, discusses how income directly relates to a student’s mathmatical abilities. Students with low income families and other disadvantages are almost always placed into classes with weak mathmatical content. Because it is highly unlikely that students will understand math they were never taught, these students only know the basic topics they were taught in this weak class. This prevents them from trying to move forward in the program because they haven’t been taught what they need to know in order to move to the higher class.

This article proves that there is an automatic disadvantage in education when a student comes from a low income family. Although they may not be pointed out for it so blatently, studies have shown that a family’s wealth corresponds with their mathmatical abilities. It is unfortunate that even though students cannot control their family’s income, they will have to pay a price that will affect them throughout their entire education, thus affecting their adult life as well. This source does not, however, answer the question as to why these lower income students are placed in classes with less rigorous math.

The article, “Good School, Rich School; Bad School, Poor School”, written by Alana Semuels, discusses the inequality presented in public schools across America. Semuels most likely wrote this article as a way to inform the general public about an inequality that many people probably didn’t realize existed. She starts off by using our homestate of Connecticut as an example of where there are such hue education gaps. Towns such as Greenwich and Darien are very wealthy, so they also have good public schools where textbooks, laptops, and guidance counselors are constantly at hand. Other areas, such as Bridgeport, have high poverity levels and thus have little money for guidance counselors, teachers, and technology. This source is an accurtate and reliable depiction of the American education system because it uses specific numbers, quotes, and sources to back up their information.

The article, “Improving Education Outcomes for African American Youth Issues for Consideration and Discussion” (February 2014), written by CLASP, is a discussion as to why African American students tend not to excell as well as other in the American education system. While the U.S. has long professed that a world-class education is the right of every child, there are still major inequities in the education system that leave African American children with fewer opportunities to receive a quality education. African American students have fewer high-quality teachers, less resourced schools, fewer gifted programs, and limited access to college preparatory coursework. These inequities are further complicated by issues of poverty and geography. For African American students, reduced and constrained access to educational opportunities begins in the early years and persists throughout the PreK-12 education system and beyond. This source is a direct example of how education is geared for specific students, leaving everyone else behind. Not only does it explain how race still effects a student’s education, but so does geography and money.

In the article, “A Critical Race Analysis of Latina/o and African American Advanced Placement Enrollment in Public High Schools” (2004), Daniel Solorzano and Armida Ornelas discuss how hispanic and African American students are highly unrepresented in Advanced Placement (AP) courses. In the state of California, Latina/o students have reached 51%, the majority of the state’s K-12 student enrollment. When examining California’s top 50 AP high schools, Latina/o students only made-up 16% of the student population enrolled in these top 50 high schools. Similarly, while African American students comprised 8% of California’s high school students, they were 5% of the student population in the top AP high schools. Therefore, students who do not have access to these courses are not afforded the extra GPA points and other college admissions benefits for taking AP courses and thus reduce their chances of becoming competitively eligible for university admissions.

This source shows how Latina/o students are also being left behind by the American education system. Schools that serve urban, low-income Latina/o and African American communities have low student enrollment in AP courses. Even when Latina/o and African American students attend high schools with high numbers of students enrolled in AP courses, they are not proportionately represented in AP enrollment.

The article, “How America Is Breaking Public Education”, written by Ethan Siegel, discusses many of the flaws in the American education system, as well as how we got here. The article appears to be written towards anyone who has a say in their education. It not only informs the public of the problem, but it also has suggestions for making it better. The American education crisis was kicked off in 2002 when the No Child Left Behind program began. Schools began focused on standardized testing, and eventually better scores became corrilated with teacher and school pay. Rather than helping children where they need it, teachers began focusing on the importance of grades. The belief was that if the student was motivated to avoid a bad grade, then they would magically be able to overcome all home problems, disabilities/disorders, and learning difficulties that held them back in the classroom. This source is important because it not only provides the root to the problem in our education system, but it also suggests methods that would help us make improvements.

The article, “Examining Gender Inequality in a High School Engineering Course” (November 2012), written by Catherine Riegle-Crumb and Chelsea Moore, it examines gender inequality within the context of an upper-level high school engineering course. Among the almost two hundred students who enrolled in this challenge-based engineering course, females constituted a clear minority, comprising only a total of 14% of students. A magnitude of surveys revealed significant gender gaps in personal attitudes towards engineering and perceptions of engineering climate. Compared to males, females reported lower interest in engineering and expressed less confidence in their engineering skills. Additionally, female students felt that the classroom was less inclusive and viewed engineering occupations as less progressive. This source shows how females are being excluded from STEM courses. They are not included as much as the male students, which can lower their self-esteem and confidence in this area. This can also lead to females not showing as high of an interest for the subject.

The article, “Why White School Districts Have So Much More Money” written by Clare Lombardo, it examines why many school districts are still so segregated, and why some receive more benefits than others. Although segregated schools are illegal, the original school district borders were drawn at a time when there was residential segregation. A recent EdBuild study stated, ‘For every student enrolled, the average nonwhite school district receives $2,226 less than a white school district,’ (EdBuild 2019). That translates to $23 billion more in funding that predominately white school districts receive compared to districts that serve mostly students of color. The CEO of EdBuilds explains that a school district’s resources often rely on how wealthy an area is and how the residents pay in taxes. This means that many of the high-poverty districts made up mostly of students of color cannot pay as much of their taxes as a wealthy, suburban area.

The article, “The Current Education System is Failing our Students” written by Abigail Cox, it examines how a student’s access to educational materials can determine one’s success in school. Americans have long seen education as a means to avert the poverty cycle, as well as boost economic growth and increase individual income. However, schools and students in need of the most funding generally receive the least. Districts serving the poorest students, predominantly low-income students and students of color are given less access to less resources, fewer courses, and more inexperienced teachers, only perpetuating the poverty cycle. By not giving equal funding to these schools and districts, low-income students within these schools are disadvantaged and less likely to receive the same quality of education as students in a better-off neighborhoods. To make matters worse, budget cuts have forced schools to cut classes and academic programs, increase average class sizes, and teaching positions have been reduced. In addition, when districts do not have enough funding for new and updated textbooks, they resort to reusing outdated ones or rely on their teachers to personally supply materials. A common alternative to this is forcing students to purchase their own supplies- some students’ families’ can afford to purchase their own, but an increasing majority of public school students are low-income and cannot afford these necessary materials.

The article, “How our education system undermines gender equity” written by Joseph Cimpian, it described how girls are often underestimated as soon as they enter school. In a 2011 study, it was found that there was no average gender gap in math test scores when boys and girls entered kindergarten, but a gap of nearly twenty-five percent developed in favor of the boys by around second or third grade. State standardized tests consistently show small or no differences between boys and girls in math achievement; however, significantly larger gaps appear more on national tests such as NAEP, PISA, ECLS, SAT Mathematics assessment, and the American Mathematics Competition. Cimpian also found that the beliefs teachers have about student ability contributes significantly to the gap. When faced with a boy and a girl of the same race and socioeconomic status who performed equally well on math tests and whom the teacher rated equally well in behaving and engaging with school, the teacher-rated the boy as more mathematically capable. In order for a girl to be rated as mathematically capable as her male classmate, she not only needed to perform as well as him on a rigorous test, but also has to be seen as working harder than him.

Beyond the K-12 education, there is large amounts of evidence at the college and postgraduate levels that cultural differences may be driving women away from STEM fields, as well as away from some non-STEM fields such as criminal justice, philosophy, and economics. In a recent study, Cimpian examined how perceptions on college majors relate to who is entering those majors. It was found that the dominant factor predicting the gender of college-major entrants is the degree of perceived discrimination against women. Women are less likely to enter fields where they expect to encounter discrimination. What happens if a woman perseveres in obtaining a college degree in a field where she encounters discrimination and underestimation and wants to pursue a postgraduate degree in that field? There will only be more obsticles that await her in the future.

Educational inequity is holding our students back from reaching their full potential and holding the younger generations back from receiving the best education responsible. In holding students back, we are depriving future society of the best foundation possible for a better world. If education were treated as an investment into the future of a country, investors would not hesitate to do their part in planning ahead and securing the future of a nation. As adults, constituents, educators, lawmakers, parents, and lifelong learners, we are responsible for the education our children are receiving. The children we are subjecting to a poorly designed education systems will be the ones leading our country. If we want a more equal country, we need to be exposing this idea to our future leaders. Would you want your future president to be a racist, sexist, tyrant?

With our advancing twenty-first century technology, we have more opportunity and ability to create change than ever before. We have the power to shape how we think the world should operate, and so far we have not taken advantage of that opportunity. We can no longer allow our children to suffer through poorly-funded educational measures or selectively pick which students learn without the proper resources. If we can change how we approach education, we have the potential to decrease the achievement gap and change the future of socioeconomic inequality. We are all human. We all deserve an equal education. We can stand up to teach our students the importance of learning, develop a culture around education, and teach all students, despite race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class the skills they need to tackle the problems of the future.

Abstract

This paper explores the effect standardized tests have on the American education system. As the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) has greatly increased the amount of standardized test in the United States, most prominently the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), this paper analyzes the effectiveness of those tests. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has revealed a drop in student ability of American students on the world stage in the last twenty years. This paper discusses the possible correlation between the increase in standardized testing in the United States in the past twenty years and this drop in student ability. It explores the reliability of said tests along with their effect on the knowledge levels of American students. It further explores whether or not those tests have helped to create an environment in which students learn skills applicable in today’s careers. Keywords: No Child Left Behind, Programme for International Student Assessment, Scholastic Aptitude Test

An Analysis of the American Education System: The Effect of Standardized Tests on the Educational Environment

Throughout the past twenty years, there has existed a critical attitude toward the American education system and how it works. Various parties have differing attitudes on the range of subjects and factors that affect the way students learn, and whether you are a member of a party which scrutinizes how the American education system operates or a member of a party which praises its current status, the fact remains: America has dropped on the world stage in terms of education. The United States scored 25th on the world stage in science and reading and 37th in mathematics in 2015 (Programme for International Student Assessment, 2015). Compared with 15th in science and reading and 17th in mathematics in 2000 (PISA, 2000). This paper will explore the possible reasons behind the United State’s recent drop in scoring on the world stage as it relates to the educational methods in America.

The General Effect of Standardized Tests

The drop in America’s international scores occurred in just the past twenty years, and the only major educational reform in the United States in the past twenty years has been the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB). NCLB mainly focused on accountability. Schools, as a result of the act, had to and are still required to report measures in student performance yearly in grades 3-8 through standardized tests. Schools that scored low on these performance assessments risked funding cuts from local levels (Jacobs, 2007). This resulted in a radical change in what was prioritized in American schools. The standardized test became a rubric for curriculums across the country. Testing numbers became the priority, not the education of students. This system is still in place today, and there has been one major result: Standardized tests have resulted in schools in America failing to create an environment that produces students who can apply knowledge to careers of the modern world. The first question is this: do standardized tests improve education? Do they help to create an environment which prepares students for the careers of today? According to the Committee on Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Public Education at the National Research Council, standardized tests as a whole have had little effect in terms of improving the educational environment. ‘Despite using them for several decades, policymakers and educators do not yet know how to use test-based incentives to consistently generate positive effects on achievement and to improve education (2011). The report found no evidence that test-based incentive programs are working as a whole. The problem is consistency. Standardized tests, by their definition, are universal across the type of test, and all measure students to the same standard. Everyone who has taken the SAT on the 9th of March, 2019 has taken the same test. They are all being asked to apply their known knowledge through the same form. Yet all students are best at learning and applying knowledge through different means. Not all students perform well on assessments through a test format or learn in the way schools are required to teach. A standardized test holds all students to the same standard and yet students have different standards themselves. A system in which standardized tests are used can result in positive effects on achievement for some, and do nothing but present a stressful test for others. In fact, according to education researcher Gregory J. Cizek, anecdotes abound ‘illustrating how testing… produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both (2005). And while some could argue that stress is simply a fact of testing in any circumstance, it does not dissuade from the fact that standardized tests as a whole fail to create consistent positive effects on achievement and improve education. Instead of viewing such testing as an incentive to improve their intellectual ability and thinking capabilities, many view them as a stressful task which decides their entire educational, and by extension occupational, future.

The Reliability of Standardized Tests

Furthermore, while standardized tests have been praised for their reliability as a universal measure of performance, studies have shown that they have failed to even live up to that standard. A study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and ’caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…’ (2001). Any student which has participated in some form of standardized testing can testify, that their performance can be directly affected by the type of day they’re are having, whether or not they had breakfast that morning, whether they had a good night’s sleep or woke up several times during the night. The point is, performance can fluctuate due to a multitude of factors, and a test that decides whether or not you get into a good college does not take that into account. If someone took a standardized test one day and took it again the next, it is extremely unlikely they would receive the same score. Whereas if someone were to take an IQ test at the age of three, it is likely that they would receive a similar score if they took the same test at the age of fifty-six. A test praised for its reliability in measuring student intelligence levels consistently does nothing of the sort. And despite their high praise and usage as a result of NCLB, no politician has stopped to ask if standardized tests in their current form reliably can produce results concerning intellectual ability, or for that matter, results which reflect career aptitude.

What Standardized Tests Actually Assess

Speaking of what tests can and cannot do, it is important to understand what standardized tests by themselves are capable of, as they are given such importance by the federal government and the world of higher education. While it is no doubt that the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) can measure whether or not one can decide whether a matrix is in row echelon form or whether or not they can define the word “spurious” the question is: do those questions accurately represent the contents of a person’s intellectual knowledge? And more to the point, will someone actually use that information that they are being tested on in the careers of today? According to a survey by Northeastern University sociologist Michael Handel, they do not. The survey states that of the 2,300 workers Handel surveyed, only twenty-two percent used mathematics at a higher level than algebra. (2009). While that is not to say that higher mathematics does not help with intellectual development. Math no doubt develops the thinking process, but that does not dissuade from the fact that it is not used in today’s careers. The test which is tasked with measuring if someone is capable of moving on to the higher education to get to those careers does measure such mathematics, having half of its test devoted to such subject. It chooses to ignore the more vital aspects important to the modern career. As researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD puts it, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include, “creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity.” Qualities, which most everyone can agree on, are more vital to most careers than the ability to measure the magnitude of a vector.

The Effect of Standardized Tests on what is Taught

Whether or not a test does analyze such qualities has little effect on what is most important when discussing the American education system: education. A person can take a test and leave not having an experience that affects personal intellect whatsoever. They could go on to score high on assessments given by the PISA whether or not they took the SAT. Except for the fact that most standardized tests go beyond just the test. They enter the classroom, changing the priorities of school curriculums and how certain things are taught. A five-year University of Maryland study found ‘the pressure teachers were feeling to ‘teach to the test” since NCLB was leading to ‘declines in teaching higher-order thinking, in the amount of time spent on complex assignments, and in the actual amount of high cognitive content in the curriculum.’ (2007) The institution of standardized tests not only changes the way students are assessed but how they are taught as well. The tests which have already been established as written to analyze qualities of students which are not prioritized for the modern career are shaping what curriculums focus on, and as a result what teachers are forced to teach. Schools spent less time on what makes education meaningful: critical thinking, creativity, persistance et cetera. A national 2007 study by the Center on Education Policy reported that since 2001, 44% of school districts had reduced the time spent on science, social studies, and the arts by an average of 145 minutes per week in order to focus on reading and math. Standardized tests as a result of NCLB are narrowing the curriculum. Students are educated on how to pass a test which does not measure anything close to what is applicable in today’s society. They spend their twelve years in basic education learning anything but the basics.

Discussion of Standardized Testing

Replacement It is no doubt that the reliability of standardized tests as a whole has been called into question. The claim that standardized tests go as far as to improve education is shaky at best, considering their evidently narrow subject assessment, questionable reliability, and narrowing effect of educational curriculums as a whole. And yet, despite the plethora of evidence which calls the effectiveness of these tests into question they are still required in any conceivable efficient educational system. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of students who were projected to attend American colleges and universities in fall 2018 was 19.9 million (2017). And yet there are only around 4,500 degree-granting institutions in the United States. All of those students had to apply to those 4,500 universities and those 4,500 universities had to go through all of those applications. And unless each university happens to have 5,000 people employed in their admissions offices it had to of taken an unacceptable amount of time to go through the applications without a way to judge the intellectual ability of each applicant, ergo: the standardized test. While in a world perfected to focus on the individual’s intellectual ability there would be a perfectly objective person to judge each applicant, that is simply not feasible. There is required a way of assessing ability that results in a test score in the world of American higher education. And while it has been discussed that the way the United States education system goes about obtaining this test score is anything but perfect, that is not to say that standardized tests as a whole reflect that imperfection. If an educational system requires a form of standardized testing that does not instantaneously degrade the quality of that educational system. Arguably one of the best educational systems on the global stage, that of Finland, has a standardized test for when students apply to higher education (FNAE, 2018). It is how an educational system goes about instituting such tests is what is important. Finland only has that singular standardized test for higher education, the only test that is required in any efficient system, whereas in America as a result of NCLB, standardized tests are given through grades three through eight and are a large focus of high school education. Such frequent testing glorifies it, and, as discussed previously, molds the entirety of the curriculum of grades one through twelve in order to score higher on those tests. Tests which arguably assess information that is not prioritized in most modern careers. This results in not only a flawed system which curriculums focus on narrower and narrower information, but in a flawed educational culture, in which narrowing that curriculum is awarded and glorified. Success is of an American educational institution is measured in numbers and statistics, not in minds developed and grown. When a student is done and graduated, which is more important? Unfortunately, too many will answer with the former.

Conclusion

Any discussion of standardized tests opens up a reflection on education as a whole, not just any singular system, and it is important to remember the complexities when analyzing the behemoth that is the subject of education. That being said, it is more than evident that the way standardized tests are implemented in America’s school system is far from perfect. The test is shown to have little effect in terms of improving the educational environment as a whole. The test which has extreme control over the future of its takers has shown to lack reliability. It assesses narrow subjects while still being prioritized among educators. The test has changed the culture of American education as a whole and permeates beyond just the testing room. Schools educate their students not for the careers of today, but for the careers of the test. A test which has shown little interest in the future of its takers.

Nelson Mandela once said: “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”. This quote shows the world that things can and should change. No one is just born racist, they were taught how to act by society, teachers, and parents. It can also work the opposite way. People can be taught to love. From a young, we are surrounded by the idea that being black is ugly. Starting from having white characters in books, movies, and even the toys we played with. There were barely any black Barbie dolls and no black girls in books. Young black children don’t have a lot of teachers who look like them or understand them in school. They never felt safe in school. All these things were ‘normal’ up until a couple of years ago. Even though the world has made changes we have a long way to go. If black children are going to grow up safe in school, we need to implement strategies to educate students and teachers on the matter, because racial injustices affect children mentally and could have an effect on their future.

On the apa.org website, there is the article ‘Inequality at School’, written by Kirsten Weir. He provides research to show how racist discipline in school is, which prevents students from meeting their full potential. Weir says: “Research shows that compared with white students, black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled, less likely to be placed in”. Black students are more likely to be given the wrong level of education because of racism. This affects kids’ abilities to learn and grow. It adds to the stereotype that black children are always in trouble and ‘ghetto’. Situations at school are escalated and when POC students get suspended, it changes how teachers think about them. This is wrong because in society if a white student were to get in trouble, they were just seen as having a bad day, but when it’s a black child, they’re seen as a troublemaker.

In the article ‘Anderson How the Stress of Racism Affects Learning’, written by Melina d Anderson, she talks about how students who experience racism don’t do as well as those who don’t. Racism in school affects students mentally. Anderson states that “physiological response to race-based stressors—be it perceived racial prejudice, or the drive to outperform negative stereotypes—leads the body to pump out more stress hormones in adolescents from traditionally marginalized groups”. She also says that “according to the paper, among this population of students, perceived discrimination from teachers was related to lower grades, less academic motivation, and less persistence when encountering an academic challenge”. The study also found that anxiety surrounding the stereotype of academic inferiority undermined students performing academic tasks. Students in college have added to stress because of discrimination in school. Kids in college already have enough to stress about. Because of some ignorant people students’ grades suffer. Further influencing the stigma that ‘POC aren’t smart’.

On the Black Lives Matter at School website, they give us a list of things we can do to have diversity in school and a safe place for POC to talk to. They said that schools should hire more black teachers and fund counselors, not cops. If we hire more black teachers, POC will have people to go to and relate to. Of course, any kid can go to any teacher, but it’s a little more helpful when it comes from someone who has been through the same thing. We should fund counselors, not cops, because having cops present will influence more students to get arrested. When cops come into the situation, it can get alleviated into something it didn’t need to. The situation could’ve been fixed with the principle. Adding more ethnic studies in the K-12 curriculum can further educate all kids and teachers on more than just slavery. Slavery is most of what is taught in black history. Instead, let’s add in the good things and more countries. Like Latino history.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” (Desmond Tutu). If we continue to sit back and watch these youth suffer in the school system, not only will they suffer, but it would cause everyone to think the same way. All these narratives about ‘white being superior’ comes from teachers and parents failing these children. If you see anyone at school being discriminated against, don’t sit back. Educate that person. Let’s change how our school systems are run.