As of 2016, the average student in America takes a staggering 112 mandatory standardized tests before graduating high school (Hirsch, 2016). Numerous quantities of students come across immense amounts of stress, trying to cram in as much material as they can that they have learned over the school year, solely to pass a test to move onto the next grade level. With this much stress that students accumulate because of standard testing, students will collapse mentally. In this essay, I will be discussing the health effects that Standardized testing bring upon students. These perspectives will relate to the negative and positive effects of standardized testing on scholars of all ages.
The No Child Left Behind Act, was established in 2002 by President Bush’s administration. This Act has a sole purpose which is a comprehensive grasp to improve education across the nation. In other words, the act established and set up a foundation to teach all kids using a level-by-level strategy to help enhance education. A prominently negative effect of the institution that is set up by the act would be that there is a direct correlation between the standardized tests that are linked to the curriculums is stress. When talking about the health lens of this topic, there tends to be many negative effects and some positive effects of standardized testing. Peck, an Ohio teacher, mentions Children who learn differently or uniquely, which of them don’t? -may be too late for the learning train, particularly when qualified teachers need only to pass tests of content and not pedagogic knowledge and practice (2002). In plain English, the one-size-fits-all curriculum doesn’t necessarily benefit the gifted or advanced percentage of students in the country because some students learn differently and/or at a different pace than others. Much stress is implicated on the gifted students because its immensely challenging for them to learn at a standard style. When schools are pressured for success, educational leaders and teachers often find themselves in circumstances where regulations and procedures are violated, sometimes with noble intent (Smolin, Clayton,2009). The fact that the teachers can’t keep up with the course, shows that the standardized tests distributed by the government do not accurately test the student’s progression of learning.
Another negative affect that Standardized Testing brings to the table is the loss of creativity in student. Students don’t get to use creativity and depth, which takes a toll on their mental health. According to Wu and Huang, university professors in Taiwan, mentioned that Fostering students' creative thinking and unleashing their imagination thus develops their capacity for innovation, which is now essential in engineering education (Wu and Huang,2017).
Creativity is a crucial component in a student’s education and the way they learn. When students don’t have a creative outlet in school, stress can pile up and possibly lead to anxiety along with other mental health problems. A student's inability to regulate emotions may be correlated with an increased level of test anxiety (A. Grava, C. Shub, K. Valis, 2017). Due to goals that the Standardized Tests require, voluminous amounts of students stress out and don’t have a way of releasing the stress.
On the more positive side of the spectrum, there are many accommodations for students with learning disabilities. According to Fuchs and Capizzi, college professors, Students with disabilities often present particular challenges for administrators and educators when standardized high-stakes assessments are concerned (Fuchs and Capizzi,2005). Those who need special accommodations for these standard tests, receive efficient accommodations that benefit them massively. Accommodation help those in need of attentive and special learning styles. Scholars benefit majorly from accommodations provided by the school and do exponentially better on tests. Less stress is also a benefit for those who receive learning accommodations.
Another reason why standardized tests should not be implemented into education is because it’s not an accurate way of testing a student’s knowledge. Stated by Alfie Kohn, Standardized-test scores often measure superficial thinking, but, as a rule, it appears that standardized-test results are positively correlated with a shallow approach to learning. (Kohn,2000). In other words, students do well overall on standardized tests, but the content of the educational programs don’t go into depth, ending in a shallow perspective of the topic. If students become programmed to learn things repeatedly in the same order, then they won’t become interested in learning anymore. Students won’t learn as much with the type of educational structures implemented in today’s education. On a relevant page, standardized tests also need a lot of money to support itself and the educational programs that go along with the tests. Referring back to Alfie Kohn, Schools across the country are cutting back or even eliminating programs in the arts, recess for young children, electives for high schoolers, and class meeting (Kohn,2000). With these facts displayed, it is evident that standardized testing has many negative effects tied into the core. Kohn also mentioned that many teachers are resigning because of the stress that is put on the teachers in trying to squeeze all the mandated material that will be mentioned in the standardized tests at the end of the year.
As mentioned in the beginning and throughout the essay, there is proven to be an unbalanced scale when weighing positives and negatives on the health lens of Standardized testing and to what extent it should be implemented into education. The curriculum and standardized tests aren’t timely efficient and end up contradicting each other. These tests not only hurt the financial stability of schools, but also affect the arts programs and limit scholar’ thinking. Students are proven to do better when thinking in depth and in a creative way. Since everyone learns in a unique way, there is no “standard” learning. The tests issues by schools and the government exceed the stress limit of students. If students continue to take these tests, then the stress will only become worse. According to Joseph Spector, Journalist at Louhd, about three quarters of psychologists from the state’s nearly 700 school districts said state tests are causing greater anxiety than local assessments, a survey released Friday by the state School Boards Association and the state Association of School Psychologists found (Spector,2015). Joseph also mentioned that Six in 10 school psychologists said the Common Core learning standards, which includes state exams for students in third through eighth grades each April, has increased students’ anxiety. Student struggle on a day to day basis because they are overwhelmed with tons of work that will essentially help them prepare for these shallow tests. These tests will continue to affect the mental health of students as long as they stay intact and executed the way that they are currently being executed. An example of a standardized test that is used in Florida is the FSA. Statistics in the past have shown that a majority of students end up failing the reading portion of the required exam. With this in mind, there is clearly a flaw in the testing system and the way they are formatted. An alternative that would benefit students and lower stress levels would be answering questions, instead of multiple choice questions. That’s just one of the many possible tweaks that the education system can implement into the curriculums.