The document discusses the debate around standardized testing in schools. It argues that standardized tests do not encourage critical thinking skills and take away from learning applicable knowledge. Instead of standardized tests, the document suggests alternatives like stealth assessment that track student progress continuously online or sampling a subset of students to take tests. It concludes that if the goal is to develop critically thinking adults, schools need to make learning fun for children rather than limiting them with standardized tests.

1. Standardized
Testing:
Is it working?
By Colton Detwiler

2. Should children be judged by their test taking abilities?
Although there are
numbers to back
up the continuation
of standardized
testing, there are
many numbers and
opinions that say
otherwise.

3. One of the biggest arguments
against standardized testing is
the lack of critical thinking
involved. The strategies
children are taught in order to
perform well on these tests are
often explained as outsmarting
the test makers, and picking
the best answer.

4. Critical Thinking and its significance
For most people, being taught
information and applying it to their
work and real life situations is the
best way to learn. Standardized
testing prep is a good portion of the
coursework now, taking away the
opportunity from the children to learn
relevant and applicable information.

5. The other issue: What can we replace it with?
One of the more practical and
intriguing alternatives is
known as “Stealth
Assessment”. Online learning
sites have the ability to track
a student’s progress day to
day rather than forcing them
to take stressful tests to
prove what seems to feel like
their own self-worth.

6. Sampling is an alternative
that keeps these kinds of
tests, but only requires
them to be taken by a
selected number of
students that represent
those with similar
learning strengths and
weaknesses. These tests
are often taken in 4th, 8th,
and 12th grade.

7. Make learning fun again!
If we want a future filled
with active, conscious,
critically thinking adults,
we must first ensure that
they are educated to be
this way as children.
Tests aren’t taken in real
life to tell people what
they’re capable of, so
why limit a child’s entire
life and future to a
scantron.