Standardized testing has been around for hundreds of years, but has been found to be more harmful than beneficial in many ways. It is causing many problems with students, teachers, and money. Standardized testing may have worked before, but it has run its time; and it’s time for a new system.

This system is causing lots of unnecessary stress for students who are already at school for about 8 hours a day, lots of which are involved in extracurricular activities and have no time for cramming for a huge test after spending hours that they were already assigned.

Studies have proven that standardized testing has caused students to have huge anxiety issues that go hand in hand with depression. It has gotten to the point that there are instructions on many standardized testing booklets that explain step-by-step what to do when a student vomits on their test. This testing method is also causing students to lose all creativity. "If we neglect creative students in school because of the structure and the testing movement... then they become underachievers.” says Kyung-Hee Kim, a researcher.

This testing makes it so that the majority of a grade is based off of one test grafe. The entire system is fear based and makes kids more scared to fail than they are to learn. Students should not have to fear for their entire grade that they have been working on all for one test grade. This brings up a new point: non-English speakers and children with disabilities. They are required to take these types of tests which gives them an extreme disadvantage to the rest of the kids who are taking something. These tests are just unfair.

Not to mention, the costs of maintaining and keeping standardized testing is extremely high. What is this money going towards? It’s going towards mistakes made within the grading and many errors. This multi-billion dollar industry is surviving even though it is constantly making mistakes left and right.

These tests aren’t even preparing children for their adult lives. It is setting them up for failure, and has taken out hundreds of minutes of important curriculum from math, science, reading, writing, and the arts. In China, all of the curriculum is covered, and they do not use standardized testing and their curriculum and education system/rates are doing much better than in the United States.

Now, since standardized testing has been around for so long, it is hard to find a new system. Theoretically, if standardized testing was to be taken out, all we would have to do is progressively take smaller and more efficient tests.

The purpose of standardized testing is to get rid of curriculum that doesn’t matter, and limits the information down to the basic information that is needed. This was a very good idea, but the pros and the cons were not looked at. Quite frankly, the cons outweigh the pros tremendously.

Standardized testing has been around for a very long time, and it may have worked before, but it’s not working anymore. High school students are already under so much stress, they don’t need this on top of their plate.