Supporters of standardized testing feel they are making progress, as the achievement gap seems to be slowly shrinking, even in urban schools. (Mills, 2001).
Those opposed to standardized testing feel that the tests do nothing to further push a child's education. Educators are forced to "teach to the test", as their entire lesson plan needs to revolve around the passing of these state exams (Kohn, 2000) Instead of teachers having students have useful cognitive learning experiences inside of the classroom, they instead must memorize isolated facts, and have no other information to connect it to (Bizar, 2001). This renders the information useless, and will be forgotten once it is no longer needed. .
Another way standardized testing injures the education process is the time spent reviewing for the test, instead of focusing on new information. In a 1992 study, the average elementary school student lost four days of instruction, upper elementary school students lost six days, and high school students can lost as much as two weeks worth of class time (Bizar, 2001). Those numbers do not even take into account the amount of heavy-duty studying is conducted before exam week. Most or all of the information being taught in class is geared specifically for the test. Jeanne Heifetz, a columnist for the New York Daily News summed it up best by saying "If it's on the Regents test, it counts. If not, fuhgeddaboudit (sic) ". Schools are also being forced to cut programs such as recess, studying of the arts, and other programs that do not serve as preparation for the exams because of time constraints or lack of funding (Kohn, 2000). The lack of funding can cripple the effectiveness of many schools, especially those in poorer neighborhoods. Those poor schools that do raise enough money must now do it at the expense of losing money needed for other educational purposes, such as textbooks (Kohn, 2000).