Blog Post 10

When I look back at all my blog posts, I realize how much I have learned about education. I brought real life experiences, opinions, and lessons together so I could reflect on education in greater detail. I spoke about how I think that schools should not diagnose students left and right with different learning disorders. I also wrote about how I think discussions are very beneficial to students. It allows students to apply their knowledge and answer and ask questions. I also believed that schools need to be safe havens for students, and teachers need to be accepting of all students. I also wrote in a couple blog posts about how schools need less standardized testing and more funding.

The themes that were common were that standardized testing hurts students. I wrote about how at Noble Elementary, they lose funding if they do poorly on tests. Schools also get graded on how well students do on tests. Noble received a poor rating, so now they must provide money to students in the Cleveland Heights and University Heights area who wish to go to other schools. I also wrote about how standardized testing causes teachers to have to teach to the test. Teachers must focus on information that will be tested. It is not bad to focus on material that is tested, but it causes teachers to forget to teach other valuable lessons and skills to students that their students can use to further their education and knowledge.

Introduction

I believe that standardized testing and the Common Core do not benefit students or the educational system. Standardized testing causes students to have more stress in their lives. A couple of tests throughout their lives cannot and should not dictate their future. I believe that education should shape and form students. It should allow students to grow and understand the world around them. Teachers should be able to teach information that applies to what is going on in their community. A school’s purpose is to help students find passions and gain knowledge. Schools should help students find a subject matter that they enjoy and can possibly apply to a job. Standardized tests take the focus away from that and turn the focus onto whether you can do something. Now do not get me wrong, students need to be tested to see if they understand subject matter, but standardized tests are so broad that teachers have to cover too much information. Adding on the that, Common Core causes teachers to not focus on helping students find their passion and gain knowledge. It causes teachers to force information down students’ throats. School should be a safe haven where students can find themselves and learn about the world around them. Teachers should be able to facilitate these ideas and nurture students so they can grow. Standardized Tests and the Common Core cause all growth to be stunted and it turns schools into factories where each student is made to regurgitate information.

Problem Statement

Common Core fails students because it dictates what teachers should teach. Teachers cannot teach students different ways to understand something. This can cause some students to be confused. Common Core and Standardized Testing causes teachers to teach information that will be tested on, or information that is mandated by the government. I think that the idea behind Common Core is good. There should be a standard saying what students should know at each grade level, but it should be flexible and allow teachers to teach the information how they want to. Standardized tests take up too much time in the class room. Teachers give students practice tests. These practice tests take up valuable time in the classroom. Standardized tests also take up time in the classroom because there can be days, up to weeks, dedicated to administering and taking the tests. Standardized testing affects students who are not taking the tests too. This topic is important to me because my junior year of high school I was affected by the mass amounts of standardized tests that were given to freshman. I was in an AP US History class and the teacher was forced to administer the freshman standardized tests. My teacher had to miss over two weeks of class time because of the tests. This caused our class to be behind in the subject matter. Those two weeks of class time that was lost could have helped us learn ore history. The class had only gotten past WWII. In the time that was lost, we could have gotten to present day.  During the test, there was a question that counted for 40% of the exam. It was about the conservatism of the 1980s. I knew nothing about it, and the class knew nothing about it. Because of the time lost to standardized testing, the class performed poorly on the AP test.

There have been many studies that show that students who have been taught with the Common Core have had lower test scores. There have also been studies that show that students who have been taking standardized tests their entire life, are less prepared for college. I think this is because schools have been rewarding students who can regurgitate information, instead of rewarding students who can think critically, make connections with the world around them, and apply what they have learned in the classroom. I also believe that basing a school’s funding off these tests is terrible. The standardized tests a designed to help some students and hurt others. For example, if a student was told to write a story about the time their mom took them to the beach. Can a student without a mom write as good of a paper as one who does have a mom, or can a student who has never left their city let alone gone to the beach write as good of a paper compared to a student who was been to the ocean. A school’s funding should be based on their need and what they will use it for. Standardized tests already cause some students to be at a disadvantage.