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             Problems with Standardized Testing.

             The Council for Learning Disabilities and the NJCLD (2004) have identified multiple consequences of poorly administered or improperly administered standardized tests among learning disabled children. Consequences of such administration may result in the following: (1) students with learning disabilities are more likely to be placed at risk for failing academically, (2) students with learning disabilities may drop out of school, (3) curriculum or instruction may "be severely distorted" if educational goals including "achieving high test scores" as opposed to effectively understanding and learning material, (4) policy makers may believe increased test scores are beneficial when they may or may not accurately reflect educational improvement or positive outcomes, (5) teachers may spend too much time reviewing or preparing for assessments rather than focus on learning and teaching and (6) teachers may unfairly receive blame for failure of students to achieve goals or for a lack of educational resources to implement appropriate assessment measures (Council Learning Disabilities, p. 67).

             Erb (2003) suggests that multiple problems exist with standardized testing particularly at the middle school level that can lead to negative perceptions of performance and serve to de-motivate children. Among the problems identified include misaligning test based reforms with standards based ones and disadvantages for learning disabled students (Erb, 2003). .

             Grigorenko & Sternberg (2000) suggest that learning disabled students taking standardized tests including the SAT, SAT-2, LSAT or GRE may be unfairly disadvantaged if tests are not designed to accommodate learning disabilities. Students may be as a result unfairly denied opportunities to pursue higher education or "acquire the tickets to the best jobs" from prestigious universities (p. 15). The researchers argue that standardized testing may not provide sufficiently precise or reliable assessment of the learning-disabled students abilities.