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Jason Cooper
Cady / Period 5
12-14-14
Argumentative Essay

The shrill ring of your alarm clock penetrates your eardrums as you awaken to
face the first day of the nightmare youve been dreading the entire year: semester
exams. The real problem however is that this year, though previously thought to be
impossible, a new degree of despair has been reached the usual week of testing
has been doubled to two. Now, students at your school will face nearly half a month
of altered scheduling and disrupted curriculum to ensure that the mass-high-stakes
testing taking place is properly performed. An increase in this testing should not be
supported because properly performed high-stakes tests place unreasonably high
demands on school systems. Those improperly performed fraudulently antagonize
and sabotage the educational careers of students by potentially wielding inaccurate
results or misaligning with classroom curriculum.
First and foremost, the demands of standardized tests create problems
big ones. This year in Colorado, approximately 5,700 underclassmen in Boulder
Valley, a major school district, were denied their scheduled morning classes for two
consecutive days in November so that 12th graders could take standardized tests.
The tests required the four largest high schools in the district to import hundreds of
laptop computers from other schools to accommodate the high demands of the
online assessments. While one may argue that this is a special case of the
interference of testing in schedules, Boulder Valley is only one of four major school
districts in Colorado impacted by the disruption of increased standardized testing;

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Jason Cooper
Cady / Period 5
12-14-14
Cherry Creek was forced to allow 12,000 underclassmen the entire days of
November 12 and 13 off due to the examinations, and Douglass and Denver
Counties also had to alter schedules (Passage 3). This clearly illustrates one reason
as to why an increase in standardized testing should not be supported:
schools simply cannot handle it.
Correspondingly, as many schools cannot handle standardized testing, many
students cannot either. Nearly 200 seniors in two Colorado schools are expected to
opt out of the new standardized testing this fall. Students claim that they have
been tested their entire educational career and enough is enough. Obviously, an
increase in standardized testing is strongly opposed. Students believe that the new
tests are irrelevant to their future college or career paths and that the test material
does not align with the school curriculum (Passage 4). Even though powerful
supporters of an increase in high-stakes testing such as the AERA claim
that en vitro, standardized tests have requirements to meet and should adequately
reflect the curriculum (Passage 2), it is obvious that en vivo, misalignment with
proper code is inevitable and highly problematic. Consequently, while it could be
argued that the new tests being introduced are an attempt at a reform to change
and thereby improve current practice (AERA, Position Statement of High-Stakes
Testing), the promised changes and evaluation of the unintended effects of the
testing have not been fulfilled the number of students opting out of exams is on
the rise, and more schools across the state of Colorado are expected to see similar
numbers of opt-outs (Passage 4). As a result of copious rejection and protest by the
students themselves, it becomes apparent that not all new standardized tests follow
AERA guidelines; the misalignment with school curriculum and lack of relevance to

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Jason Cooper
Cady / Period 5
12-14-14
students educations in the new exams is a flagrant violation. Therefore, it is clear
that the improperly performed and therefore fraudulent examinations
are detrimental to students' educations, an unreliable source of highly-valued
information about students' educations, and simply unwanted.
To reiterate, an increase in high-stakes testing should by no means be supported
nor implemented. The high stakes of high-stakes testing means that strict rules and
regulations must be followed by those in charge. This places immense pressure on
schools to administer them correctly and follow guidelines. When administered
correctly, schedules and normal procedure are evidently disrupted on scales large
enough to make the tests inefficient and burdensome to students and schools.
When administered incorrectly, the tests simply become invalid and potentially
destructive to students futures. Thus and thus, an increase in standardized testing
is clearly and conclusively far too problematic, disruptive, and potentially malicious
to be favorable or efficient by any means.