With the rise of high-stakes testing, across the nation students are being robbed of their arts and humanities classes, their critical science courses, and general historical knowledge. With presidential support across the nation, standardized testing has become the one means of assessment in public education.

With the rise of high-stakes testing, across the nation students are being robbed of their arts and humanities classes, their critical science courses, and general historical knowledge. With presidential support across the nation, standardized testing has become the one means of assessment in public education. Teachers will shape their curriculum around the testing materials only. Other concepts will be ignored in order to improve the test scores of the students. Cultural diversity negatively affects the score outcomes. Students of low income or of color will be negatively affected by standardized tests. IDEA does not encourage high stakes testing; therefore, they have placed some requirements on the standardized testing of special education students. These tests cannot be the only measures of assessments to make decisions such as student graduation (High Stakes, 2008). Students with disabilities must be included in all statewide testing. Accommodations and alternate assessments must be provided in accordance with the student’s IEP (Cortiella, 2006).

Cortiell, C. (2006). NCLB and IDEA: What parents of students with disabilities need to know and do. Retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/11846/

High stakes testing. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.democraticeducation.org/index.php/issues/high_stakes_testing/