Effect of Mandated Testing on Education - Research Paper Example

The consequences or sanctions vary in level of severity, but the implication is clear. They send vivid indications that the method gives a crystal picture of the student’s performance. However, some of the implemented tests may not offer a fair platform to pass judgment on the teachers or students using their performance results. In that, the tests may not offer full and fair credibility on the performers or the tutors. The following paper will show an elaborate analysis of articles touching on mandated testing and its effect in schools.

Susan Ohanian, in her article, “Constraining Elementary Teachers' Work: Dilemmas and Paradoxes Created by State Mandated Testing,” scrutinizes this mode of testing in an elaborate manner. In her work, Susan is keen to provide the resultant effects of mandate testing on the affected individuals, who are teachers and students. She argues that teachers are pressured to act in ways that seem unprofessional to them. In turn, this forms a leading disadvantage of the program in schools. Subsequently, the teachers believe that their behavior will not yield fruits of success in the affected students.

Moreover, they feel that they are acting in unprofessional ways as mandated testing seem to focus on Mathematics and English language arts more than the science-related disciplines (Ohanian, web). In addition, according to Susan’s article, the teachers do feel that the test pressure them to work the things the tests demands of the students instead of improving the student’s general performance. In relation to this, when the mandated test turns to asking the student for something previously not familiarized to the student, need to refocus ruptures.

There is a need to refocus on things to feed the students’ minds, as the mandated tests requires. However, the article claim a more pressing matter is forcing the teachers to lose their professionalism. The teachers find themselves between helping the students in elementary school and being loyal to their professional field. They feel that their professional training does not concur with the requirements of the mandated test. In order for a student to succeed in the mandated tests the teachers, have to comply with the requirements, which they feel they are not in line with their professional understanding of the curriculum.

In turn, they end up ignoring their professional feelings and instead assist the students conform to the requirements of the mandated tests. On the other hand, within the same article, Susan reports of teachers who embraced the ideology of mandated tests and their effects. The teachers believe that the tests offer a comprehensive way of developing the writing, listening and reading skills of students. Moreover, these tests enable students to develop their thinking from a lower level to higher one.

Within yet another article, by GreatSchools’ Staff, they record of reasons behind the tests from federal and state governments. They believe that the government offers these tests as a way of ensuring all students meet the standard level of the expected grades. As a way of encouraging students to pass in their tests, the government introduced mandated tests. In addition, they publish the results of the mandated tests giving everyone, including teachers, parents and students, an opportunity to view them and contemplate on the way