Title: How Standardized Testing Damages Education (Updated July 2012) | FairTest
Headings: How Standardized Testing Damages Education (Updated July 2012)
How Standardized Testing Damages Education (Updated July 2012)
HOW STANDARDIZED TESTING DAMAGES EDUCATION
How do schools use standardized tests?
Who is most often hurt by these practices?
Revised July 2012

Content: On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in "gifted and talented" or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly. How do tests control curriculum and instruction? In many districts, standardized exam results have become the single most important indicator of school performance. As a result, teachers and administrators feel enormous pressure to ensure that test scores consistently rise. Schools narrow and manipulate the curriculum to match the test, while teachers tend to cover only what is likely to be on the next exam. Methods of teaching conform to the multiple-choice format. Education increasingly resembles test prep. It is easy to see why this could happen in low-scoring districts. But some high-scoring schools and districts, striving to keep their top rank, also succumb. The pressure is so great that a growing number of administrators and teachers have engaged in various kinds of cheating to boost scores.