Standardized testing does not effectively measure students’ intelligence, but rather their ability to take multiple choice tests and infer answers strategically. To a certain degree, they can be very useful in determining a student’s rank and eligibility into certain schools, such as the SAT’s and ACT’s, but many other issued tests are in need of a major overhaul.

Here in Arizona, standardized testing is everywhere and students are often used as guinea pigs for the newest tests. Tests such as AzMERIT incited a lot of controversy when it first rolled out in November 2014, as students taking it would be a trial run. AIMS, however, has recently been dropped by Arizona schools as of April 2015, and it will not be a requirement for students graduating up until the 2017-2018 school year.

School children in Finland rank first in the world on internationally administered testing. What sets them apart from the US, who tends to rank in the middle?

Finland doesn’t place a heavy importance on standardized testing. Rather than proctoring these annual tests such as America does, they are only taken on rare occasion and their students’ results are not used to assess their knowledge, but rather as an aid to determine academic growth. However, they still tend to rank consistently at the top when compared to other nations. This can be linked to their education system, where teachers are required to be taught for longer prior to teaching. In contrast, American teachers receive an average

The attitude toward education there as well as other countries who rank above the US is stressed more on actual knowledge and retainment, rather than employing test-taking strategies on multiple choice questions.