Ethics in Education

School Testing 1

Running Head : REVISING THE SCHOOL TESTING STANDARD

A New School Testing Standard to Control School Cheating (your name here (University (your professor here (course number

School Testing 2

The educational paradigm of our school system for the past century has stressed the mastery of the skills and knowledge in math , science and reading based on state mandated standards . Since the advent of educational testing , this method has been used to measure the amount of learning that students have gained during a particular school year Mastery of skills and

knowledge would be indicated by higher test scores and the state sets the scores that should be attained by each school The educational system has been characterized by high stakes testing and this has led to the debate on whether testing adequately measures the performance of a school and its students (Amrein Berliner , 2002 Despite the strong opposition on high stakes testing , it has endured for the past couple of decades and with the No Child Left Behind ' policy it has become increasingly more influential in the fate of the schools in this country . School Testing carries with it far more complications than what meets the eye and without an appropriate testing standard one would think that test scores are not always truthful . In the No Child Left Behind ' policy , schools that have not met the required test performance for three consecutive years will face the likelihood of state takeover , management by private groups and students will be provided with the means to seek education elsewhere . This provision has led to the rampant cheating of schools in the state mandated tests to ensure their future and operation . The most common of which is to assign low achieving students to special education classes to exempt them from taking the test . If the current system pushes schools to cheat on the test , then maybe the standards for school testing is also faulty (Carson , Huelskamp Woodall , 1993 . This discusses the most appropriate standards for school testing and to suggest possible consequences of school caught cheating on the test

School Testing 3

School testing is state specific and it follows a pre-designed basic curriculum which all schools must adhere to . The standards for school testing are developed by the state and forced-fed to the different schools . Moreover , the test used is more often than not chosen by the state and although most probably they have evaluated the test based on the prescribed curriculum , the procedure for which has not been as transparent as it should be . The present scenario in our schools is that they go about their business of teaching and preparing students for the adult world and then the state requires each student to take a standardized test for the purpose of measuring what they have learned and based on the performance of the students in the test , the effectiveness of the school is then determined . Students with learning disabilities are excluded from the test and hence the school 's...