Former First Lady 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.” 

There are many different reasonings behind standardized testing, why it’s there and how it benefits students and teachers. However, there are more cons than pros. Standardized testing should be banned in schools because a student’s potential shouldn’t be judged on test scores, and students are likely to do inadequately when under pressure. 

Standardized testing should be banned in schools because test scores are not an accurate representation of a student’s capability, knowledge, and qualification.  When a student is taking a standardized test, it’s not testing them on their knowledge of a certain subject or skill. They’re being tested on how much they can memorize and how good they are sitting down and taking a test. 

ASCD.com (Association for Supervision and Curriculum) says, “The overarching reason that students’ scores on these tests do not provide an accurate index of educational effectiveness is that any inference about educational quality made on the basis of students’ standardized achievement test performances is apt to be invalid.” Many people such as parents believe that their child is only smart if they get good grades on tests and perform well on exams that most of the time aren’t even accurate. According to Whitbyschool.org, “Far too many people wrongly assume that standardized testing data provides a neutral authoritative assessment of a child’s intellectual ability.” 

Recently, “researchers have found that high standardized scores have little correlation with memory, attention and processing speed. High test scores could simply mean a student excels at rote memorization and multiple choice test taking,” says Whitbyschool.org. 

All in all, these are just some of the reasons why standardized testing should be banned from schools. Feel free to contact me, I would love to hear about your thoughts on this topic and other topics. Have a great weekend Redhawks!