Each year, students all over the United States have to suffer through state testing. It’s a stressful time for all of us. From day one of school, teachers have to prepare their students for this test. They are required by state to teach the common core standards or their students could fail the standardized testing at the end of the year. Also, some students get testing anxiety from these tests. The United States government needs to stop giving students standardized testing.

According to the Washington Post, students’ AIR writing tests that they spent hours working on are graded by computers, NOT humans. Only 25% of these tests are re-checked by humans to check the computer’s work. In the fall of 2017 third grade reading tests, more than half of answers by students scored zero points because they copied too much of the question or reading passage into their answer, not using enough of their own words (cleveland.com). In elementary school, students are taught that when answering a question, they should restate part of the question in their answer. Now if students do that, they get points taken off for plagiarism! Does the state of Ohio simply expect students to forget everything they’ve learned about writing in complete sentences just so they don’t get a zero? This is just wrong. Plus, everybody’s answers are different. When the computer grades these responses, students could get points taken off for making creative answers that the computer may not agree with. Some people have learning disabilities or a different nationality, so their level of English may be different from other peoples. Students get points taken off for improper grammar, but we all are different. If we have to take these tests, then it should be humans grading the tests, not computers because it makes the scores fair.

The American Institute for Learning and Human Development says that too much stress is psychologically and physically harmful. When students are stressed, they are not able to concentrate well. Taking a standardized test, such as the AIR test, is way too stressful. According to Columbia University, teachers are basically forced to teach to the tests or their students could fail the standardized tests. Since teachers spend too much time focusing are teaching common core standards, they aren’t able to teach skills that aren’t on the test and this can make school boring. This can put a lot of stress on teachers because they have to make sure their students pass the test or it could affect their job. It also doesn’t help that students are timed during the test, so they feel pressured to finish on time, which could get them a bad score on the test.

According to the Ohio Department of Education, students currently have to score at least 18 points on seven state tests in order to graduate from high school. This means that students have to score at least four points on English tests, four points on math tests, and six points on science and social studies tests. This goes back to why standardized tests are so stressful. A student’s score on the state test depends on whether or not they graduate.

According to the Washington Post, students take an average of 112 state tests between kindergarten and the end of 12th grade. This is way too many tests and the government needs to stop making students take them.