As the American education system continues to place more emphasis on standardized testing to measure academic achievement, critics have argued that it can be more harmful than helpful to students’ development in the long run. Here are some of the pros and cons of standardized testing:

PROS



Every student measured against same narrow, irrelevant set of standards



Holds teachers personally accountable for success of large, monolithic testing organizations



Western tradition of critical thinking best embodied in bubble-sheet format



Keeps students quiet for upwards of 90 minutes



Repeated testing carefully develops teachers’ cheating skills



Only biased against kids who couldn’t afford college anyway



Data. More data.



CONS



There are easier ways to measure parents’ income



Takes up time that could be used to teach toward additional standardized tests



Standardized test–scoring machines kill and maim more than 200 workers annually



Allows U.S. students to be compared with those of other developed nations



Fails to measure attractiveness, which will have far greater impact on future success or failure



Students may in fact become too prepared for future



Probably could be more profitable

