Grade 12 Standardized Testing Debate

[ibeeberz]

Hey all.

This Saturday i have a debate club competition with other schools, and the resolution for this competition is

"BIRT Ontario should institute compulsory, standardized tests for all
subjects in Grade 12"
(Be it resolved that, BIRT)

I love debate but this is my first time on this club, so i wanted to get some oppinions, perspectives and views from people here.

The topic is Standardized testing for Grade 12's before the graduates puruse to University/College. I am from Ontaro, canada, and there is no standardized testing here.

However, i believe that they have them in america, so i wanted to get youir point's of view on it, and why.




My team was chosen to support Pro. Our main ideas are..

1. It filters out the exceptional students over others

2. Fair oppurtunity for those to enter universities/college, since there is a lot of discrepancy between highschools, hence, a standard needs to be set. an 80% average (without standardized testing) at xyz school can be the same as a 70% in abc school.


We need more, and we need lots of points of view. Thanks, it is VERY appreciated.

Isaac

[Chancellor]

Are you talking about Canadian schools?

I'm not sure about standardized testing but I do think grade level should be enforced. In other words, a person doesn't leave the grade he's in until he has fully mastered every subject. Using reading as an example, he can move from fourth to fifth grade when he can start reading at a fifth grade level. A twelfth grader can leave high school when he can start doing college-level work in all his subjects.

[Inlineskater]

There is (in my opinion) a problem about that in the U.S.They have the SATS and I think there is another major crucial one. And of course they have benchmarks and SOLs (at least in Virginia, not sure about other states) and it really adds up. And for most students taking a test is stressful, and they have to study for all of those. So by the time it is summer, the kids who do well are the kids who don't have a life. They spend too much time taking tests and worrying about them, wrather than learning, which is what you're are supposed to do anyways. These tests can make life miserable for a high schoolers hopeful of getting into a good college. Not to mention, to pay for said college what will they be doing in the summer after all that? Working! I think that a standardised test on everything they learned in the year at the end of the year which pretty much decides ones future wrong. I wouldn't want them to have a standardised test, cause if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.
And they wonder why so many kids are doing drugs...

[Kamehameha34]

2. Fair oppurtunity for those to enter universities/college, since there is a lot of discrepancy between highschools, hence, a standard needs to be set. an 80% at xyz school can be the same as a 70% in abc school.

No, don't compare grades that way. You should, upon defending this particular argument, say that you would compare placement. For example, a student who scores 3rd in his school would be directly relateable to someone who scores as 3rd in another school.

[ibeeberz]

Quote by: Kamehameha34 No, don't compare grades that way. You should, upon defending this particular argument, say that you would compare placement. For example, a student who scores 3rd in his school would be directly relateable to someone who scores as 3rd in another school.

Oh, i didnt refer to the score on the Standardized test, i referred to a casual report card average without standardized testing.

[CoffeeSaint]

Quote by: Inlineskater There is (in my opinion) a problem about that in the U.S.They have the SATS and I think there is another major crucial one. And of course they have benchmarks and SOLs (at least in Virginia, not sure about other states) and it really adds up. And for most students taking a test is stressful, and they have to study for all of those. So by the time it is summer, the kids who do well are the kids who don't have a life. They spend too much time taking tests and worrying about them, wrather than learning, which is what you're are supposed to do anyways. These tests can make life miserable for a high schoolers hopeful of getting into a good college. Not to mention, to pay for said college what will they be doing in the summer after all that? Working! I think that a standardised test on everything they learned in the year at the end of the year which pretty much decides ones future wrong. I wouldn't want them to have a standardised test, cause if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. And they wonder why so many kids are doing drugs...

There's no reason the test couldn't be repeated if the results aren't acceptable the first time. You can take the SAT's more than once. As for the issue of stress, I think it does a terrible disservice to teenagers to assume that they are incapable of dealing with stress, and thus to prevent them from having to face anything deemed "too" difficult. Teenagers deal with everything that adults do, though in different ways. A teen's life is not carefree and happy-go-lucky, and if we strive to make it that way, then the teen will be doomed when they get out of their teen years and suddenly everything is stressful. The growing trend in American education has been to support students in every possible way, so as to eliminate the "sink or swim" mentality; that attempt is all well and good, but the result has been that many of our high school graduates go on to college -- and sink. Because they've never had to swim.


Hi ibeeberz; welcome to Volconvo. I'm a public school teacher in Oregon, so I've dealt with standardized tests quite a bit. Here are some arguments you can make, and some things to watch out for from the other side.

1. Standardized tests do give college admissions officers a very clear (though incomplete) picture of a student's ability, one that cannot be gained from grades alone, as grades are subjective and test scores are not. This allows colleges to get the truly best and brightest students, regardless of where they may come from -- good high schools, bad schools, homeschooling, etc.
2. Tests also give a reasonable picture of the high school's ability to teach students certain specific skills; if every student at a school fails at reading comprehension, then that can tell the school what they need to improve in order to best serve their students.
3. Fact is, people have to take tests throughout life: we have to take tests for college, in certain jobs, for licenses, etc., etc. Testtaking is a specific skill set (including dealing with pressure, knowing how to read questions and knowing what to look for in answers, knowing the tricks inherent in different kinds of questions, and so on) that is best taught as part of the lead up to a standardized test, and through the experience of taking tests. Students who learn to take high-stakes tests will be well-served by that knowledge.


On the other hand:
1. Standardized testing programs are obscenely expensive to implement. Billions of dollars for a large school population, such as California's -- something like 10-12 million public school students there, I think. And you have to keep paying for new tests every year, and for the tests to get scored, and for materials and training for teachers to improve their students' scores.

2. High-stakes testing almost inevitably leads to "teaching to the test," in which schools become frantic to raise test scores, and so teach students only those things that will be tested. This leads to a devaluing of such subjects as music and art, and makes the core subjects, math and reading and such, extremely boring to teach and to learn -- which just makes it harder to raise test scores, and starts a vicious cycle. It's one reason why I moved away from California -- Oregon isn't as far along in that cycle.

3. Tests are notoriously hard to make relevant and valid, which means they don't always reflect what they're supposed to reflect about a student's abilities. Just because you fail a math test doesn't mean that you're bad at math, but when the test is for high stakes, that may be what people decide about you, based on your test score alone. So if the test has any sort of bias, it can cause bigger problems, including misplacement of students, resources for schools being used in the wrong ways, and lawsuits brought by students whose career choices were wrongly limited by the test.


Good luck with your debate; hope this helped.

[ibeeberz]

You are very helpful and intelligent, thanks alot.

[Jern_Sandyer]

Do what Alberta does and use Provencial Achievement Tests which we take in grade 3, 6, 9 and 12. That way we track how the students do reletive to the rest of the province. Also the grade 12 diploma exams are worth 50% of the mark. At least you didn't ask this a few years when there was Grade 13 which might confused a couple of people.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Inlineskater There is (in my opinion) a problem about that in the U.S.They have the SATS and I think there is another major crucial one. And of course they have benchmarks and SOLs (at least in Virginia, not sure about other states) and it really adds up. And for most students taking a test is stressful, and they have to study for all of those. So by the time it is summer, the kids who do well are the kids who don't have a life. They spend too much time taking tests and worrying about them, wrather than learning, which is what you're are supposed to do anyways. These tests can make life miserable for a high schoolers hopeful of getting into a good college. Not to mention, to pay for said college what will they be doing in the summer after all that? Working! I think that a standardised test on everything they learned in the year at the end of the year which pretty much decides ones future wrong. I wouldn't want them to have a standardised test, cause if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. And they wonder why so many kids are doing drugs...

When I was in high school, I didn't worry about tests because I focused on learning the material taught in class and in the homework. I took the tests and got what I got - and I still managed to graduate in the top 10 percent of my high school class. I took the ACT without being particularly worried about it. Starting in eighth grade, because I went to school in New York State, I took the State's regents examinations. Again, I wasn't particularly worried about the results and I still did well. My daughter is in high school now and she's not particularly worried about taking the SAT (and the ACT; she plans to take both). I've always told my daughter that if she knows the material she learned in class, she'll always do reasonably well on the tests.

Teach the students what they need to learn and teach them to take responsibility for what they learn. Then test what they've learned and let the chips fall where they may. It all comes down to enforcing grade level: don't let a student leave a particular grade until he has fully mastered that grade.

[Stewbert]

Hi, I'm from BC and here, we had a "provincial" exam for almost all our courses. This exam was worth 40% of our final mark. Personally, I think that a student's ability cannot be accurately reflected by a single number, let alone measured by a single examination. However, I have actually benefitted from taking the American SATs since it has given me multiple chances redeem myself after messing up some subjects in that crucial 1st term in Gr 12.

For your debate, you could look into the BC system and maybe find some improvements the provincial exams have made to support your side.

Good luck!