The use of standardized tests in American schools to assess the academic achievements of students and effectiveness of teachers has skyrocketed in the past decade. After the “No Child Left Behind Act” was passed in 2002 to further encourage and promote the use of standardized tests, annual state spending on tests rose from $123 million in 2002 to $1.7 billion per year in 2012, according to the Pew Center on the States. Simultaneously, overall student performance in the United States has declined. In 2009, the United States dropped from 18th to 31st place in math on an international ranking. The Program for International Student Assessment reported a similar decline in science and no change in reading. Since then, there has been minimal evidence of any improvement as a result of standardized testing. If these tests fail to improve student accomplishments, why are they still being administered in all fifty states?

Without a doubt, standardized tests are beneficial to compare the basic skills of students from different states and towns. However, the application of these tests to evaluate an individual’s capability and intelligence is belittling for some students. Standardized testing is an inadequate measure of students’ improvement in school. Besides essential knowledge, there are numerous factors that affect how well a student performs on a given test. Many intelligent, motivated students have poor test taking skills. Although they may have a full-encompassing knowledge of a subject, poor test takers have difficulty implementing their knowledge during tests. Carnegie Foundation refers to this disability as “Lack of Test Sophistication”, comprising of the incompetency to eliminate answer choices and manage time for time-limited tests.

In addition to test-taking skills, test anxiety influences student performance on a test and is unrelated to both the teachers’ efficiency and students’ aptitude to learn. Test anxiety is caused by pressure placed on students to do well. Many schools use standardized tests to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers. Therefore, teachers tend to stress the importance of these tests and vigorously prepare for them. Students who experience test anxiety often study thoroughly, but during the test, their minds go blank and students have difficulty answering questions due to extreme nervousness. While taking a test, students focus on negative hypothetical thoughts, such as “What if I forget everything I’ve learned?” or “What will happen if I fail?”. As these thoughts preoccupy and distract students’ minds, less mental space is available to contemplate the test questions.

Using standardized tests to measure student improvement is like trying to use a ruler to measure speed. Although it is possible for a ruler to calculate the distance traveled, it is incapable of measuring time. Distance is only half of the information needed to compute speed; therefore, a ruler is an inadequate tool for this application. Similarly, standardized tests fail to measure a student’s improvement in creativity, behavior, and cooperation in a working environment. If a student accelerates in these areas over the course of the school year, but fails to achieve the “proficient” level on a standardized test, should the teacher be punished for ineffectiveness? Derrick Meador claims, “This does a disservice to both the teacher who worked hard to help their students grow and the student who worked extremely hard over the course of the year and improved tremendously, but failed to score proficient”.

Changing the way in which teachers and students are evaluated would decrease student stress and allow the classroom environment to be more flexible to creativity and open-mindedness. Teachers will no longer feel a need to “teach the test”, squeezing minute, insignificant details into their lesson plans only because they appear on the tests. Instead, teachers could spend additional time delving into more important topics. The only way to fix this error in the educational system is to eliminate standardized tests.