Standardized Testing facts
While investigating facts about Standardized Testing Debate and Standardized Testing Pros And Cons, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Researchers testing insect repellents used a Victoria Secret perfume as a standard, accidentally discovered that it repels mosquitos better than many repellents on the market
how standardized testing damages education?
The term "grandfather clause" comes from the Jim Crow era. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and quizzes were designed to keep blacks from voting. But these standards barred poor whites from voting as well. The solution was to pass laws that allowed descendants of past voters to be "grandfathered in".
What's standardized testing?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what standardized testing is bad. Here are 46 of the best facts about Standardized Testing Definition and Standardized Testing Cons I managed to collect.
why poor schools can't win at standardized testing?
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Big educational companies like Pearson have allowed plugs (ads) for consumer products in their standardized tests
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JUUL is the only electronic cigarette product found with nicotine concentrations high enough to be toxic in standard cytotoxicity tests. The nicotine found in JUUL products is about 61 milligrams per milliliter of fluid in pods—equivalent to more than one pack of conventional cigarettes.
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Students in Finland rank far higher academically than US students despite going to school only half as long, having little homework and no standardized testing.
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Harry Truman, before he became the President, tried to enlist in the Army. He was refused after an eye chart test determined him having 20/400 vision in the left eye (past the standard for legal blindness). He took the test a second time after memorizing the eye chart and got enlisted.
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Finland schools allow students to work 3-4 hours a day. Standardized testing is illegal in Finland.
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According to the FDA, ketchup cannot flow more than 14 centimeters in 30 seconds at 20 degrees Celsius when tested in a Bostwick Consistometer. Otherwise, it must be labeled "Below Standard in Quality."
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There is no international regulation of nanoproducts, underlying nanotechnology, globally agreed definitions or terminology for nanotechnology, agreed protocols for toxicity testing of nanoparticles, and no standardized protocols for evaluating the environmental impacts of nanoparticles.
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At a US nuclear test site in middle of the Pacific, radioactive waste was buried and covered with a concrete dome. Cleanup was so poor that the dome fails American standards for landfills for household trash and radiation inside the dome is dwarfed by the radiation in the sediments outside it.
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it's possible to opt your child out of common core standardized testing and teachers aren't allowed to tell you about it in some states.
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The fastest manned airplane ever built was the 'North American' X-15, an experimental rocket-powered plane. One test pilot reached 4,519 MPH in 1967, a record which still stands. The X-15 could fly so high that 8 pilots technically qualified as astronauts, according to Air Force standards
Why standardized testing is good?
You can easily fact check why standardized testing is important by examining the linked well-known sources.
In Computer Science a famous standard test image, a picture of Swedish model Lena Söderberg, was banned in 2018 by Nature for being degrading to women.
The Ganges River serves over 400 million people for bathing, cooking, drinking, cremations, and raw sewage drainage and is so polluted that one area tested over 1.5 mil. fecal coliforms per 100ml and up to 100 mil. fecal coliforms per 100ml, 200,000 x higher than official standards of 500/100ml. - source
All airplanes must be able to evacuate all of its passengers and crew within 90 seconds,the time for a standard fire to engulf the cabin. Testing passengers must be 40% female, 30% 50+, 3 carry a doll and only half the exits used. Airbus A380 only took 72s. - source
The reason #2 pencils are so widely used in testing is because early scantron machines couldn't detect marks made by harder pencils, so using No. 3 and No. 4 pencils would result in having exams scored incorrectly. No. 1 pencils would smudge, so No. 2 pencils became an industry standard.
Department of Justice (DOJ) officials pressured the Dayton Police Department to lower testing standards because not enough African American candidates passed the written exam. - source
When did standardized testing start?
The American Kennel Club has no health standards for breeding dogs and forbids its member clubs to require health testing to breed a dog
How standardized testing affects students?
A US-based psychologist, H.H. Goddard, saw the potential for Binet's test and set about creating a large pool study in order to create a set of standards for it. This work resulted in the creation of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, which is still in use today.
China has adopted a meritocracy program provides upward mobility based on standardized test performance. This has led to the population focusing on test-taking skills, perhaps at the expense of innovation.
In 1996 during meningitis epidemic in Nigeria, Pfizer did an illegal human trial for a new drug. And gave a reduced dose of the standard drug to skew the test in favour of its own drug. Total 11 children died because of those 2 drugs.
During the Mercury Program, 13 women who were mostly civilian test pilots, qualified for spaceflight under the same standards as the The Mercury 7 astronauts but NASA declined to consider them for spaceflight. One of the people that testified against their inclusion was John Glenn.
1/3 of the people who fail the Standardized Field Sobriety Test that American police administer are sober.