Plato believed you could arouse a person's soul with your words and they would believe in what was being presented. Plato also believed that a speaker should have high moral character and only persuad

Standardized Testing

Website

Standardized Tests - ProCon.org. (2017, January 31). Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://standardizedtests.procon.org/

I plan to use this source to outweigh the pros and cons of having standardized testing in school and having it determine a lot of things about students. I want to mostly use the cons, but I think that including some of the pros will help my audience see that the pros really aren’t worth the cons, and that a change needs to be made. I also plan to use the information on the No Child Left Behind Act that is included on this website.

This website seems to be very credible. The source may have a bias, but it is not presented within the site, they include both sides of the argument and seem to only provide the statistics and pros and cons rather than there personal feelings. The websites goal is to provide pros and cons of controversial issues, and to keep their feelings and bias out of it, so I feel that it is very credible in the information it provides. The source is very current, and was recently updated this year. They cite there sources very well, telling where each fact comes from and the credibility behind them. I trust the information I will be using from this source.

Website

(2017). Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality. Retrieved April 06, 2017, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don%27t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx

This website has a lot of very useful information about education. I plan to utilize the information on the reasoning on why students test scores should not be the only determining factor in how they are doing. It talks a lot about how test scores cannot be used to evaluate educational quality, specifically teachers, and I think it’s very important that I talk about this in my speech. I specifically want to use “it’s like measuring temperature with a tablespoon,” a quite included in this website, I think that it’s very accurate and will give my audience a better understanding.

I feel that this source is very credible. ASCD is a global community that is dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching, and leading. This sources goal is to make education the best it can be, and therefore I trust what it says about standardized testing. There is bias in this source, they are saying that standardized testing is not the best route and they are against it, but they go about their side respectfully and provide very useful facts and examples on what made them feel this way. I feel like the source is a little bit older, but it doesn’t take away from its credibility, because the issue is still very similar and present.

Newspaper

Layton, L. (2015, October 24). Study Says Standardized Testing Is Overwhelming Nation's Public Schools. The Washington Post. Retrieved March 31, 2017, from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-38898516.html?refid=easy_hf

I plan to use a lot of information from this source. I would like to use what Barack Obama said on testing when he was in presidency and what other higher up officials have said on the issue of standardized testing. I also plan to use the graph they provide on how much time students spend testing and how many tests they take a year by grade level. This will help my audience realize how much time is spent preparing for tests and taking tests, when in reality that time could be used in a much more beneficial way to the students. I also plan to use the information it provides on how teachers are analyzed based on test scores, making them worry more about that than actually educating the students.

Washington Post has been a credible source in the past, and I trust them. I also trust the author because she is a trusted reporter and when looking through her other articles she has been investigating and reporting on school issues a lot, making her educated on the school systems in America. While reading this article I couldn’t sense any bias, it seemed like she stuck to reporting and talked to trusted people and analyzed their arguments, without including her own. She used a lot of very credible sources, including Barack Obama, teachers who are directly affected, and Council of The Great City Schools, all reliable sources in my opinion. The article is a little bit outdated, but just because we have a new president and his views may be different.

Newspaper

Wallace, K. (2016, April 4). Testing time at schools: Is there a better way? CNN. Retrieved April 7, 2017.

This source offers a lot of information on reforming standardized testing. I think it will be beneficial to use this in my speech because that’s what I want to happen and I am pushing my audience to agree with my views on this. I also want to include the other options that this source includes on measuring student progress without ridiculous amounts of times spent on standardized testing and preparation.

This source is credible and does not show an unfair bias. It is very up to date, only being about a year ago. CNN is also a credible source, they report on real things with facts and expert opinion. Kelly Wallace, the author, also has many awards on the work she has done, and that makes me trust her more. The expert speakers and narratives included in this source help make it credible.

Book

Kauchak, D. P., & Eggen, P. D. (2017). Introduction to teaching: becoming a professional (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

I plan on using only a small amount of information from this source. I would like to include how standardized testing affects teachers planning and how they have to teach, opposed to how they should teach. I would also like to use a little bit of information from on the No Child Left Behind Act, and this book includes a lot of information on this. It provides useful information on cut off scores and the ineffectiveness of this. There are many useful speakers in this book that talk about standardized testing, and it offers parents opinions as well. I will use a substantial bit of information from this source.

This source is credible, without a question. This is the textbook I am required to use for my introduction to education course and it is the newest edition, which was just released in 2017. The publisher is Pearson, which is a widely accepted, and trusted publishing company, specifically for credible, factual textbooks. This book is almost always used for students becoming teachers, and is used in almost all education 1010 classes in the state.