Jonny
Leon
English
102-111
April
2, 2012
Outline
Title:
Improving Our Schools without Improving Test Scores
Thesis:
The failing United States school system would see the greatest improvement by eliminating
standardized testing and using a more effective evaluation system.
- Problem – The current US education system is
failing its students and will continue to do so until some change is
enacted.
- Teachers’ Unions prevent ineffective teachers
from getting fired under the idea of tenure.
- Standardized testing gives students only what
is necessary to do well on the tests and no more.
- The No Child Left Behind Policy rewards high
preforming schools and punishes underperforming schools.
- All students are not treating equally within
the school system and gifted students are given more attention.
- Solution – Elimination of standardized tests
altogether and a focus on teacher evaluation of students.
- Standardized tests should be eliminated altogether
from the school curriculum.
i.
Standardized
tests are useful for student evaluation in some ways but they become the only
method of evaluating students.
ii.
Their
use has become abused in all schools throughout the United States.
iii.
That
is why they should be eliminated altogether rather than still used in a small
manner.
- Standardized test are way for the government
and the administration to see how schools are performing but offer no
real learning potential to the students.
i.
The
current use of standardized tests is not what they were designed for.
ii.
They
were just supposed to be a way the government could determine how much money to
give to each school.
iii.
They
have no become the main subject of teaching and some students are taught
nothing but what will be on these tests.
- In the evaluation of standardized tests
students are compared to each other rather than up against some standard
of excellence.
i.
This
means there is no real standard for what students will be held up against.
ii.
Each
year the standard will change.
- Teachers should evaluate students
individually.
i.
The
United States is one of the only economically driven countries that still uses
standardized tests as the main way of evaluating students.
ii.
Students
should be evaluated by their teachers and then at a higher level of education
they should be evaluated by a panel of teachers.
iii.
Individual
teachers could evaluate the students through primary school but in secondary
school a panel of teachers would evaluate their students.
iv.
To
most Americans this concept seems so foreign and probably very difficult to
enact but it is what most European countries do and the United States is well
behind these countries in education.
- Justification
- Standardized tests are the greatest problem to
the American education system.
i.
They
led to all other kinds of problems within the education system.
Fixing the current curriculum based solely on improving tests scores
would improve all aspects of the education system.
