'The Effectiveness of the Standardized Tests\r'

'Education has alship canal been an issue in e very(prenominal)day life, and continues today to be very important. The effectiveness of statewide testing has been infra much discussion as death chair Bush has made education a top priority in his administration. In my opinion however, the method used in Texas, TAAS testing, is not effective and should not be implemented nationwide because this method pres for sures get worders to teach particular propositionally toward the test, specifically supporting memorisation and not learnedness, cramming knowledge for the TAAS, and rearranging school schedules to nourish quantify allotted specifically for TAAS reviews.\r\n first of all of all, school districts in Texas ar evaluated on how well their school”s TAAS results are, thusly urging teachers to repeatedly go all over the same topics so the students are â€Å" aware” of passing TAAS. This results in students not skill the subject, but instead, memorizing. This meth od is great for laconic term, but ofttimes they review questions that exponent be asked on the test, then sextet months later the child forgets. For example, mathematics teachers often teach how to work a specific â€Å"TAAS related” problem, rather than making sure students fully understand the total math concept. This can be very deleterious to the student”s comprehension and to anformer(a)(prenominal) subjects they may take later in their school career.\r\nFurthermore, it seems that teachers fill to cram as much knowledge as likely to cover certain test areas. rather than exploring a wide variety of subjects and gaining as much knowledge as possible, the teachers mustiness cram knowledge of certain subjects, cognize it will be part of the TAAS test. They peradventure have students at different levels and learning abilities, but often the b veraciouser students are held brook from learning more, until the slower students catch on and catch up to the entire sieve. This inhibits the endow or talented students progress and they range to be negatively impacted.\r\nFinally, the time divisor must also be considered. Because so much emphasis is put on the TAAS test, it impacts class schedules. For example, teachers at my school have three days of the week given over to TAAS preparation. Without having statewide testing, these days could be eliminated and other important topics could be learned. Rather than commandment students reinvigorated information, often class time is taken up reviewing TAAS test questions. Although this class time may be good to students struggling to pass the TAAS, those who do not need the help are cachexia valuable learning time.\r\nAs the aspect goes, â€Å"The mind is a terrible involvement to waste,” yet this seems to be what we are doing. We are teaching our students how to test, reviewing subjects redundantly, and teaching in such a way that bores even the bonnie student. When time is spent on TAAS skills that a student has already mastered, it is literally a waste of time and talent. I accept that your state will consider doing the right thing, by not mandating statewide testing. surely there are other ways we can evaluate our school systems and not put students in jeopardy or being held back from the joys of learning new information and our teachers from exploring new and exciting methods of encouraging students to learn.\r\n'