At one point or another we have all have taken standardized tests.   You know, the ones with endless rows of perfectly formed multiple choice bubbles or ovals and well sharpened #2 pencils.  Not to mention attempting to stay inside the lines, without crayons!  Yeah, those.

Well, President Obama may have just exponential boosted his popularity with this comment,

“All you’re learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test and that’s not going to make education interesting.”

It looks like 10 years after the Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policy, the era of filling in bubbles instead of the brain may just come to end.  The Obama administration is advocating “learning about the world, learning about different cultures,  learning about science, learning about math.”

Revolutionary huh! What? ACTUALLY learning instead of memorizing to regurgitate on standardized tests? What is that all about? After all, we have singlehandedly  managed to become one of the wealthiest nations that ranks 25th in math scores compared to 70 other countries. Quite an accomplishment.

But before you take a stand on the American education system and standardized testing, here are the pros and cons as presented by advocates and critics.

Pro

• Both Teachers & Students can be held accountable
• Easier to grade & not time consuming
• Measure student progress by identifying their weaknesses

Con

• Results in no meaningful learning in classrooms
• Assess a narrow set of skills
• Some high stakes testing have negative emotional and material impacts on students, schools, and teachers.

We want to know what you think. Take our poll below ( ironically, it is multiple choice)