We all know what standardized testing is. It’s the STAAR, it’s the PLAN, it’s the PSAT, it’s these tests that everybody hates, but we still take. When these tests loom near, a common complaint from the student body is that standardized testing should get cut, but nobody can give a good reason why. Most reasons range from “it’s just hard” or “I don’t have enough time,” but those reasons don’t apply to everyone. For some students, standardized testing could be the easiest thing on Earth, and others may have so much time to waste that they don’t even matter.

According to a paper done by the University of Colombia’s School and Child Care Search Service, there are many cons to standardized testing. Success on a standardized test is not always indicative of a person’s aptitude, as it can be affected by many external factors that cannot be controlled, such as hours of sleep the night before, parental stress, and just plain luck. Standardized testing also shifts the classroom’s focus from the actual coursework to teachers only teaching the test, and as such sacrifices any practical utilization of the skills learned to secure higher test scores. Standardized testing also increasing unnecessary competition between schools, as schools that perform well on standardized testing receive more subsidiaries from the government.

We should not be working towards a system that is as flawed as this.

It is also worth noting that the National Research Council has found that administrators and politicians cannot make positive effects consistently using a test-based system, showing that standardized tests are not as effective as we always thought. There is most likely a better system out there that can increase achievement in our education system, but standardized testing does not reveal these benefits consistently, showing it to be a system that is majorly flawed.

According to the Washington Post, after President Bush launched the “No Child Left Behind” program in 2001, our place in reading comprehension and math on the Programme for International Student Assessment or the PISA fell from 18th in the world to 31st. Furthermore, the education gap between high income and low income areas is only growing, not closing as the bill was supposed to do. It also encouraged rote “teaching to the test” methods and denied any actual learning.

To find solutions to these problems, we must look to Finland. The Finnish education system is ranked #1 in the world, and for good reason.

Finland has a very high student achievement rate, all while having no standardized testing whatsoever. Finnish children can thank Pasi Sahlberg for this, the Director General of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation in Finland. Director Sahlberg believed education was to be made equal for all students, leading to education becoming a civil right. A century later, Finland made high school mandatory for all citizens. Due to this, Finland held teachers and educational administration in a higher light, as teachers now had to study harder than doctors or lawyers in order to achieve their degrees, resulting in teachers requiring more qualifications and training than their American counterparts (no offense).

In the 1980s, Finland abolished standardized testing, citing the reason that it wasn’t necessary. This allowed teachers to actually teach the course and not the test, leading to the high level of achievement we see today in Finland.

Standardized testing has major inherent flaws such as insufficient coursework and unhealthy competition, coupled with the fact that the benefits are almost always inconsistent, shows that that there is no actual need for things like the STAAR.

So, why do we still have standardized testing when there’s a much better system available?