Essay - If Standardized, National Testing is Implemented for Students in Elementary...

If standardized, national testing is implemented for students in elementary schools and secondary schools, the United States government will be making a st*****tement that American students will leave their elementary ***** secondary schools having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography. In route to this, it will ***** shown that every school in America will ensure that all ***** learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further *****ing, ***** productive employment in our modern economy. One of the methods that the government has adopted with hopes ***** assistance in reach*****g ********** goals is to apply, nationally throughout the school system, ***** assessments of each student's progress, which can subsequently *****fer some statistical proof on how well plans of education reform have worked.

***** is an important *****, cause although the intentions of using standardized testing seem to be for good reasons, major questions on it's consequences should be raised, particularly of what relevance is the ability to perform well on a standardized test to ***** ability to perform in subsequent, different situations? As William J. Bennett writes ***** an article on education and nationalized testing, "Without educated citizens, the popular government they founded, in James Madison's unforgettable phrase, is 'but a prologue to ***** farce or tragedy; or perhaps both.' Education in ***** was to be the 'best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments of public liberty.'" These are statements of insurance, saying that a good educ*****tion now ***** a good defense any worldly, public infringing trouble we ***** confront in ***** future.

But is the standard ***** of our youth an indicator ***** how prepared we individually and collectively are? Tests measure whatever ability ***** required to answer the questions on that particular test, and that numerous variables ***** involved in this process. Tests, *****ever, regardless of what quality of abilities they describe, are used chiefly for the purpose of making statements about the ***** performance ***** ***** person taking the *****. The ultimate test of a test, then, is its usefulness in predicting performance at ***** point in the future. Is it, as a predictor, limited in what it ***** that ***** projects and postulates? There are m***** types ***** standardized *****s that forec*****t futures specific to ***** boundaries of ***** test—ACT forecasts college performance, just as the national testing applied to younger students will make predictions stuck ********** the perimeter of the ***** environment and not necessarily the larger world, which is where the synthes***** of many types of education, ***** just classroom education, play the most important roles.

***** problem in the perceived importance of this testing applies to those who create the assessments. This is not saying that "question 'a'" *****'ve been asked instead of "question 'b'," but queries the decisions made on what abilities ***** most ***** in an almost infinite number of real life principle situations. From a *****oretical point ***** view, what these evaluations are doing are grading the