Today schools are factories making students into test taking robots. The focus of the standardized test has become a business. We need tests, but the reasons for testing have become wrong; therefore, tests are ineffective, and do not benefit the students and teachers.
The idea of testing for knowledge and ability has vanished. State and school reputations have become more important. In "A Tyranny of Standardized Test" Botstein has a strong stand about the misuse and ineffectiveness of standardized tests. It is sad that a reputation of a school can mean more than a students education. So much money is wasted on the ineffective tests. " We spend more than $200 million a year on it" (Botstein 19). The money could be used for better purposes than a school's reputaion. Ravitch believes we need tests but there are many disadvantages to they way we use them.
With the focus of the tests being lost, tests do not effectively take into consideration how and what students know. Because the only important thing that comes from the tests is the results the students are not benefiting from them. Lesson plans in middle schools and high schools are based on what the standardized test will test students on. It is not preparing studentds for future education in life, if all the students are learning is the tests. " Performance in education means the mastery of both knowledge and skills" (Ravitch 23). Performance in education does not mean good test results for schools.
The students and teachers do not benefit from the current test results at all. Tests should be designed better, so that the results can be used better. Testing should be used to see how the student understands the information that they were taught; therefore, teachers would be able to see if they were teaching efficiently with the results. Test results should reflect " not only the student's progress but the teacher's effectiveness" (Botstein 21).