APA on State Standardized Testing for eng 102 class - Research Paper Example

The response to the questions from all the students is given in a consistent way by all the students. The conditions and the procedures for tackling the questions are also consistent among all the students. In addition, the tests provided are often standardized, that is to say they must be according to the education level and knowledge of the students [Moon, Brighton and Hall 2007]. State standardized testing is common in the schools in the US. However, the practice is accompanied by several problems or challenges.

One of the challenges or problems caused by the practice is that it results in frustration and resentment among gifted learners in the educational institutions in the US. In most schools in the US, state standardized testing is a common practice. In schools, there are several students with different abilities. Schools comprise of physically challenged children, mentally challenged children, slow learners, medium learners and lastly the special group of gifted learners. Though there have been a lot of criticisms of the US, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 has forced the standardized testing in public schools.

Standardized tests are often prepared by very talented people who believe that the level of mastery among all students is the same or similar. These people often prepare the test with the aims of testing the knowledge of a student in a certain subject in relation to the knowledge of other students in the same subject. They also test a student’s strength in a certain paper for example mathematics as compared to the student’s strength in a different paper for example science. However, this comparison of the knowledge levels among different students of the same grade level has resulted in frustrations and resentment among the gifted students as earlier mentioned.

Gifted students in institutions are students with good memory, high understanding ability and are therefore fast learners. The standardized tests also do not measure to the quality of education that is always expected of the students, [Popham 1999]. In educational institutions where the standardized testing system is practiced, teachers often concentrate so much on the performance of their institutions. Therefore, they tend to concentrate on all students in the classroom. A class consists of students with different abilities.

When a teacher concentrates on all the students at ago, this is a great disadvantage to the gifted learners. First, the pace of learning becomes slow as opposed to the expectations of the gifted learners. The slow learning is due to the other physically challenged children, mentally challenged children and the slow learners present in the same class whose pace of understanding is very slow. The learning system also becomes repetitive because the teachers often prefer to re-emphasize on the weak areas of all the learners as shown by their outcomes or results in the standardized tests.

The repetitive learning also is a disadvantage to the gifted learners who prefer fresh and new challenging tasks other than the same old content. The slower pace of learning and the repetitive learning is due to the emphasis on the state standardized testing system and this has at a greater level caused frustration and resentment of the gifted learners in the education institutions in the US. "Standardized tests can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical reflection, or a host of