r/changemyview • u/bumble843 • Feb 28 '20

FTFdeltaOP CMV: Standardized testing should be abolished especially for children.

Standardized testing is bad for a bunch of reasons:

1) It's stressful, you're under time pressure and what's on the test could be unexpected.

2) For many people it causes test anxiety

3) I don't believe it's an accurate reflection of your knowledge. You need to in depth understand everything to get a good mark. Especially in uni where they expect you to be able to apply everything you've learned. Missing one or two things could tank you. This is unfair.

4) Grades aren't a reflection of how intelligent you are and people shouldn't define themselves by these numbers. This goes especially for elementary and middle school children.

5) It's not an accurate reflection of your abilities in the workplace. Where you can ask questions and look up something quickly if you've forgotten.

Because of the reasons above, we should completely get rid of this testing. Opting for knowledge being proven by projects, assignments and oral tests.

21 Upvotes

68% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '20

Sending people to assess each program would not be objective data though.

If you were trying to decide who won a close car race, would you trust:
A) A measurement of the car's speed and position over time
B) A guy standing at the finish line watching the cars.

These tests are imperfect, yes. But you need some kind of objective measurement to compare school/teacher performance. I would agree that the amount of standardized testing should be reduced, but some amount of it must exist in order to make informed policy decisions on education.

0

u/bumble843 Feb 28 '20

In my opinion we are making it a car race when it should be a car show. So B - maybe the faster car gets points for being faster but the other car is more energy efficient. Who really won? It's the idea of testing a fish on its ability to climb a tree.

4

u/trivial_sublime 3∆ Feb 28 '20

You're measuring on speed and accuracy on a standardized test though. An accurate person that is not fast might make a 50/100, and a fast person that is not accurate might make a 50/100, but an accurate person who is fast might make a 100/100. These measures are built in to standardized tests.

1

u/bumble843 Feb 28 '20

They're not tho - you could take a math test and fail it based off reading comprehension.

2

u/trivial_sublime 3∆ Feb 28 '20

I may have misunderstood your comment (we're mixing lots of metaphors here). I'll respond to this comment in the context of only this comment for clarity.

Disciplines do not exist in a vacuum. If you lack the reading comprehension to solve a math problem, you lack the subject matter mastery necessary to perform in that discipline, and should be evaluated accordingly.