Chapter 10

I found that standardizing poses both pros and cons to our current educational system. The idea of equal opportunity is important and something that gives lower-class students with high testing abilities a way to escape the lower rungs of society. However, there cannot be a true correlation between standardized testing and vocational purposes. Many jobs in America require street smarts in addition to book smarts. The standardized testing movement allows us to use technology to decide who are better learners and who should go to the better schools, effectively get better jobs and make that much more money. At such a young age, it is hard to depend on these types of tests to separate our youth. Many students are diagnosed with ADD, attention deficit disorder, which impairs their concentration during testing. If there should be some sort of test to divide the intellect of our American students, it should not be with just one test. Maybe students should have to perform real tasks, vocationally, like they would in their real job. I work with people who never finished high school yet they know the system better than me even though I’m the one in college. What is our education system really about? Separating our kids into groups based on how well they did on a test? It is not that simple.