As students go through grade school, there are many different ways they are assessed and analyzed to determine their academic achievements throughout the years. These measurements are vital in determining student progress as well as help teachers and administrative staff assess if a child is ready to progress to the next grade level, or if they are ready to go to college. As standardized tests have become more popular throughout the years, they have also raised many questions in the education community and with parents. Many wonder if some testing is too far or if it is even legitimized. Standardized testing has greatly become a determining factor for many students as the try to progress in their education and many question how far is too far when a child exceeds in all other aspects of the classroom including informal and authentic testing. Other forms of testing like traditional or formal include standardized testing, and these forms of testing minimized teacher focus on the student but rather student test scores, are unfairly biased toward upper-class males preventing minority success, they overall assess a minimal amount of skills rather than assessing the child as a whole, and greatly increased student stress. 

One of the biggest concerns with standardized testing is the affect between teacher and student. Many teachers see standardized testing as a threat to their jobs, and therefore they spend copious amounts of time teaching students to pass these exams rather than learning material that makes them well-rounded students. Alfie Kohn, the author of "The case against standardized testing: raising the scores, ruining the schools," states "high-stakes testing may turn teachers against students," and later continues about how "A superintendent in Florida observed that 'when a low-performing child walks into a classroom, instead of being seen as a challenge, or an opportunity for improvement, for the first time since I've been in education, teachers are seeing [him or her] as a liability." If educator resent their students because they are falling behind, the student-teacher interaction will most likely become negative, completely demeaning the children and how they feel about themselves. Kohn emphasizes that "If educators resent children who are likely, for one reason or another, to preform poorly, they cannot establish the nurturing relationship with those children." Student and teacher interaction is very important for the progress and well-being of a student as a whole, so when resentment arises, the relationship is compromised. Student teacher relationships are also compromised when "the weakest teachers were given a system they could readily conform" says Linda McNeil of Rice University, the Director for the Center of Education. McNeil's comment lies within Kohn's article with the intent of saying that weaker teachers have learned how to work the system of standardized testing, so essentially they are keeping their jobs when really they fail other aspects of teaching like their one-on-one relationship with a student and their personal progress. Teachers are coaching elementary level students on how to succeed on state or national issued test in order to simply keep their jobs, rather than being an effective teacher helping the student become well rounded in all aspects of the classroom. Teachers teach what the tests are looking for, and standardized tests "can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical reflection, or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes" according to Kohn. Therefore, when teachers neglect the aspects that make students well-rounded, they fail to do their job, but yet they are recognized for excelling on exams, ultimately compromising the students' education. Finally, Kohn believes "high-stakes testing can lead to widespread cheating." In essence, he states this because teachers feel the pressure from state officials to have certain percentages of their students succeed, they belittle themselves and their students to cheating. "Reports of such behavior always elicit condemnation of the individuals involved but rarely lead people to rethink the pressures attendant on high-stakes testing," (Kohn 18) so essentially standardized testing directly impacts the teachers and the pressures they face to make sure their kids pass examinations. When students become aware of the cheating, this can result in one of two things: first, the student feels shame in not being good enough, and second, the student might see cheating as being allowed because if their teacher can do it, why can they not? This negative affect from testing compromises how teachers ultimately feel and react toward their students which in tern deteriorates the very important relationship of trust that students must have with their teachers.

Relationships are not the only thing that furthers a child from progressing their education, but their backgrounds can too. The difference between minority scores and upper class male scores is greatly noticeable when standardized tests are compared. According to Monty Neill and Noe J. Medina, authors of "Standardized Testing: Harmful to Educational Health," write "Researchers have identified several characteristics of standardized tests that could negatively bias the scores of minority students and of students from low-income families." After these biases are identified, they recognized who these tests actually favor: "These tests tend to reflect the language, culture, or learning styles of middle- to upper-class whites" (Medina, Neill). Because these tests reflect one culture, they therefore neglect the numerous cultures that exist in the United States, " ... stylized English commonly used in standardized tests prevents such tests from accurately measuring the achievement, ability, or skills of students who speak nonstandard (e.g., African-American, Hispanic, southern, Appalachian, working class) dialects" (Monty, Neill). The language used not only is biased against foreign culture, but actual cultures that exist in the United States, especially the most prominent class in America: the working class. Monty and Neill give an example: "African-American students often associate the word environment with terms such as home or people, while white students tend to associate that word with air, clean, or earth" and they further state that neither definition is wrong, but only one of these definitions will be accepted: particularly the one reflecting the white male perspective. Asking questions like the one previously stated obviously shows biases because it accepts definitions based on those who wrote the exams which happen to be upper-class white male professors or educators. When students answer these types of questions in context of their culture, they can receive little to no credit. "Students tend to preform better on tests when they identify with topics covered by the test items ... Unfortunately, standardized tests continue to be dominated by questions about and for middle- or upper-class white males" (Monty, Neill) So, what the authors are stating is that what children learn in their classrooms is not wrong, but in the case of these tests and the particular answers that the exam is looking for, they are wrong. Alfie Kohn, author of "Standardized Testing and Its Victims," agrees with Monty and Neill emphasizing how "critics have complained that many standardized tests are unfair because the questions require a set of knowledge and skills more likely to be possess by children from a privileged background" essentially concluding that tests do contain biases that penalize students of other backgrounds and assess skills that do not reveal accuracies of our current society.

In addition to the tests benefitting upper-class males, there are claims that standardized tests are not actually testing students on important or necessary material. Based on much research, testing does not actually reflect student progress, but rather it simply identifies students according to the outcomes of their answers. Keshia Weaver, author of "Standardized Testing Measuring the Academic Success of Student's" presents her analysis of these studies: "But these studies strongly suggest that standardized tests fail to measure the qualities that are truly important, reward the ability to adopt a superficial style of thinking, and may in fact penalize many of the candidates with the deepest minds." Oklahoma State University's provost, Bob Sternberg, speaks openly about his experiences and how standardized testing does not widely fit the skills needed in present day society: "The skills you need to survive today are just much broader than the skills you needed to survive in the 1800s." Sternberg emphasizes how standardized tests do not account for creativity, adaptability, and accountability that is needed to be successful in today's society: " ...  you not only need the memory and analytical skills that are so important on those tests, you also need to be creative, you need to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing environment in a creative and flexible way ... " Scholars continue to find evidence supporting how tests do assess skills that are necessary, like memorization and problem solving, but the fact that tests do not cover a wide set of skills like communication between potential coworkers, the ability to physically fix something broken, or any other everyday working skill magnifies the fact that standardized tests should not be considered a major mile-maker in student progress, but rather it should be considered equal with other forms of assessment. Dawn Camacho and Vickie Cook, authors of "Standardized Testing: Does it Measure Student Preparation of College & Work?" conclude that "Instruction must go beyond procedural knowledge and focus on conceptual knowledge so that students are able to demonstrate their learning on a wide scope of standards because they have been taught how to think and problem solve." They confirm that there is more to a student than just assessing procedural knowledge, but in fact, a wide range of material that is vital to success is missing from standardized testing. 

Student stress greatly impacts how well they do on a standardized tests like state issued tests or national issued tests like the ACT, American College Test, or SAT, Scholastic Aptitude Test. The emotional cost of "high stakes testing causes anxiety and stress for students. It is physically exhausting" says Jacky Boyd, a blogger for the Badass Teachers Association. Boyd also believes that adding the negative emotions associated with poor performance enhances the negative views of having to take these tests, and though she states "teens can own responsibility for failure, Kindergarteners cannot" a very important idea that should be recognized when states implement testing from Common Core criteria. Common Core is widely known for testing children at all age levels, all over the nation to make sure each child is on the same level before progressing to the next grade level. This can be very damaging for young students because if they have passed each grade without an issue, and then suddenly they are being tested on a national level, they can easily fail, and therefore the results can be damaging to their emotional well-being and how they perceive themselves. "With all the stress teachers and administrators are under it would be unreasonable to think it does not rub off on the students as well. Some schools go as far as putting up a visual aid to show where their students fall compared to classmates" (Reddell 3) Not only do teachers feel the heat of testing, but students feel the second hand effect, and when they are openly compared to others "This allows the students to see which of their classmates are proficient, which can be embarrassing for students who fall below a given line" (Reddell 3). Samantha Reddell then automatically comes the conclusion that a single test can affect a student's entire educational career because this publication of their tests can detriment their self esteem.

While recognizing yet another flaw with standardized testing, there are pros that do exist behind some of the ideas that come with standardized tests. The idea that the country has something to compare students from California all the way to South Carolina with when it comes to their knowledge and ability to actually sit down and take a test, are beneficial to the nation so that they can see the progress of the nation as a whole. Standardized tests allow alignment of all states and the expectation of their students. Samantha Reddell, author of "High Stakes Testing: Our Children at Risk," points out exactly what testing does: "Testing in schools is used in a wide variety of ways: placing children into learning groups, ranking schools amongst others in the region, state, and nation, and creating a visual for where our nation as a whole is heading." She openly points out what testing does for our schools, and it is easy to conclude that testing is obviously beneficial, right?  "According to researchers, best practices for the use of assessment tools are to focus on the alignment of standards, assessments, and curriculum" (Camacho, Cook 11) emphasizes that, yes, alignment between how students are measured nation wide is the best practice for the use of assessment, but "educators must understand the constructs of a test to support thinking and learning" (Camacho, Cook 10). Educators need to understand the meaning behind questions on tests, and why there are important or beneficial to the students' assessment. A problem that currently exists is our educators are not aware of the intent behind standardized test questions and how they accurately reflect a specific type of student (upper class males), rather, they assume these tests are there as a measurement of their ability to teacher what is on state or national tests. Robert E. Stake, author of "The Teacher, Standardized Testing, and Prospects of Revolution," recognizes the reform that is needed to take place in the classrooms but points out that "Research shows that it is a mistake to design a revolution in American schools around a national testing program." SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and ACT (American College Testing) argue that their testing is important because it is accurately used to predict a college student's first semester grade point average and most of these studies do confirm that both tests are equally capable of predicting college grade point averages (Aleamoni 393). Yes, the fact that these tests have the ability to predict grade point averages for incoming college freshman is a very helpful tool, but it does not solve the issue that these two major tests can actually prevent a student from reaching their dream college or a college that is truly the best fit for them. Many schools, like the Ivey Leagues or even Clemson University, have denied students that have excelled academically in the classroom because they did not meet the standard average of their accepted students' ACT or SAT scores. An average that is in fact something they have openly created by only accepting students with above average scores. So basically these schools are telling students to throw away all of their hard work in the classroom, because without a high test score, they are not good enough.

The simple idea that a child is not good enough because a standardized test has so much meaning behind their overall academic success is completely absurd. Standardized tests diminish many teachers' performance in the classroom because their jobs are on the line over a simple test. These tests are bias to hard working students who come from any background or culture besides that of a white, upper class male student, and in turn questions are not analyzed and answered to the standard of the county, state, or nation. Because these tests are bias, on what ground is the material that is used for testing accurate? The answer to that is the fact that tests only analyze a small portion of what a student has to offer intellectually and physically and therefore, material that is actually on the tests shows little about how the student has grown and progressed during their academic year. The stress on students to preform their years' worth of knowledge is unfair and potentially belittling when being compared to others. It is easily concluded that standardized testing should not be a major mile marker in student success, but rather it should be reevaluated because it is is an unfair representation of a student as a whole.

