Standardized tests are exams given to students across a specific region that are monitored by the respective state or national educational body to ensure that students are administered the same test, under the same conditions.
According to the Teacher's College at Columbia University, American students rank among the most highly tested, taking more than 100 million standardized exams each year. They range from nationally administered exams such as the SAT and ACT, to more local- and state-mandated end-of-course exams.
While there are arguments on both sides of the debate, advantages such as the ability to allow students to compare themselves against others in the same grade level, the cost-effectiveness of administering them as well as the level of accountability that can be associated with a school because of test results, have some educators and parents looking favorably on the exams.
The disadvantages of standardized tests that have been cited include having cultural biases that hinder certain students' performances, being unrepresentative of both the complexity and breadth of information that has been taught and learned, lacking the real-world applications that other tasks would provide and being unsympathetic to social changes and developments that could alter the meaning of a particular concept or use of language.
With an ever-growing bilingual population, there are new issues arising with the effectiveness and fairness of standardized testing, particularly in terms of standardized tests' inability to truly differentiate between language barriers and literacy problems.