TSI, SAT, ACT, PSAT, MAP, and STAAR. Do these many acronyms overwhelm you? Believe it or not, these state-testing programs tend to overwhelm the students too. Many high school students in the state of Texas take nearly all of these tests within one school year along with their benchmarks, quizzes, midterms, tests, and finals. These constant tests lead to burn-out.
Testing should be reduced to lessen student burnout.
To make things clearer, what exactly is burnout? According to the HelpGuide.org, burnout is, “a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.” The issue with academic burnout is that it can lead to psychological issues such as emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. According to the National Library of Medicine, about half of students are at risk of academic burnout and 20% of them already suffer from academic burnout. The NCBI also said, “Several studies indicated that academic burnout has a negative impact on students’ efficacy which is a barrier in their academic achievements. Furthermore, it can cause some psychological disorders including anxiety, depression, frustration, hostility, and fear in students.”
As many might think all these tests are required so students should just “push through,” they are not. According to FairTest, more than 1,900 U.S. colleges and universities are not requiring SAT or ACT scores for admissions for fall 2024, continuing the proliferation of test-optional and test-free practices.
Standardized testing also does not reveal a student’s intelligence as it doesn’t evaluate their creativity level, problem solving skills, or capability to collaborate. Tests are not predictors of future success. Tests only show if students are good at taking tests considering these scores can be easily influenced by anxiety, hunger, sickness, home life, and even the insecurity of a bad hair day. Steve Martinez, Superintendent of Twin Rivers Unified in California, and Rick Miller, Executive Director of CORE Districts, note each “state currently reports yearly change, by comparing the scores of this year’s students against the scores of last year’s students who were in the same grade. Even though educators, parents and policymakers might think change signals impact, it says much more about the change in who the students are because it is not measuring the growth of the same student from one year to the next.”
High schools should not have their funding based off their annual testing. Schools are not required to give annual achievement tests to students, yet will lose funding if they do not. According to TheClassroom.com, local school districts determine test content, but with the recent push toward meeting Common Core standards, states’ tests are becoming more standardized. A school that consistently fails to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP; measures the amount of academic growth per school) standards may not be able to access some grants and other forms of funding. After five years of failure to meet AYP standards, a school can be closed altogether. If schools were not forced to administer standardized testing to give an education, schools could focus more on truly educating students without the academic burn-out.
Numerous tests can be distressing to students’ mental health and can cause them to have a pessimistic outlook on school. While burnout feels unavoidable at times, knowing that testing is not always required and does not show all intelligence is good to remember. However, a change should be made by pushing for standardized testing to not impact a school’s funding to lessen student burnout.
