Before standardized testing, the only way to measure students growth and knowledge was through oral testing. In 1915, Frederick J. Kelly published a book containing the first standardized test as well as its instructions for anyone administering the test. Now standardized tests are given to students usually starting in kinder, or even pre-kinder, all the way through the rest of their education. Initially, the goal of standardized testing was an alternative to oral testing for determining students preparedness for college. Now standardized tests are used in students everyday lives. All school year long students are taught information that they will be tested on later, or at the end of the school year. The goal of standardized testing has developed to become not the only measurement for students individual growth but also for teachers performance in the classroom and schools performance overall. However, the effectiveness is questionable. Now
adays it seems as if standardized tests have become schools’ main, and sometimes only, focus. Standardized tests attempt to measure how well students do in the classroom, but there are many negative things about standardized tests that make it hard to accurately measure a students growth. Instead of the teacher teaching for their students to gain knowledge that they will need later in life, they end up simply teaching the test, focusing only on the material given. The effect of this testing on students is not always a positive one, in the sense that standardized testing induces stress on young kids. Furthermore, and quite ironically, even the creator of standardized testing (along with other educators of the time) originally thought these tests were too cruel and should not be used in classrooms. Standardized testing is no longer as effective as it once was because it has been overused. They should be altered if not eliminated completely.