Fed up with testing, an 8th grader in upstate New York recently created her own standardized test in an effort to mock the entire process. Her reading passage is included below. Read the original article in the Washington Post to take the full exam.
Dear New York State,
I am not fond of your tests. They do not show you who I am, or who my teachers are. For example, if a student is a bad test taker, you would look at her test and think she is a bad student. What happens if a kid is just having a bad day? You would only see that one test and and think he was an unsatisfactory pupil. Imagine how stressed the teachers are having to rely on their students’ test scores as a form of evaluation.
Not all students are the same, therefore standardized tests are impractical. Albert Einstein once said, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” These tests can lower self-esteem and cause a lot of anxiety. The tests are so long that, by the last day of testing, some kids end up guessing, just so they can be done. How can you put eight-year-old kids through six days of testing over a two-week time frame?.
Children with special needs have even greater trouble with these exams. The tests are a total waste for them….
Sophia says it best later in the passage when she warns “just think of how boring the world would be if everybody was the same.”
Shooting for the STAAR, Missing the Point? 