While I attend my Service Learning Placement, I get to witness how standardized testing affects teaching. One particular day in the classroom the teacher is reading two different passages and then students are comparing them. The students are involved and participating. The teacher announces that these types of scenarios will be on the end of year testing and the students go into panic mode. "What will be on the test?" they ask. "Which question is on the test?" they ask. Later on the teacher tells me their reaction is the same when she mentions end of year testing.
The teacher feels like the pendolum will eventually swing the other way and standardized testing will be eliminated as a way to assess students. She feels like they should be assessed individually on achievement and advancement, not on one test.
