Stressed and Standardized.

It’s something that’s been widely debated for a few years now, but only this past week did I start to question it myself. Standardized testing. Does it work? Is it accurate? Is it worth it?

Of course, growing up in the great state of Texas, I took the TAAS test then the TAKS test. I did well in school. In fact, I remember looking forward to test days because I would finish early and have several hours to read afterward. I don’t remember other kids being stressed out by the test but back in our day (wait, am I getting old?) I really don’t think the test was that difficult.

I work as a nanny part time for a wonderful family here in Austin as I work my way through school. Basically, I take care of the kids after school and make sure everyone gets their homework done and has a little fun before soccer practice.  The kids are bright; they’ve even skipped a grade. They are full of life and jokes and laughter every day after school. They tell me funny stories or tell me about what’s going on in school while I make them a snack. Over the last couple of weeks I noticed a huge difference in their moods, particularly when it came to homework. There was attitude and tears galore. When I got to the bottom of it, they told me they were worried about failing the STAAR test, they felt like they were dumb and wouldn’t pass.  We worked together on a review packet and this is when my anger set in. As I read through the problems I quickly realized that these problems were designed to trick the kids. There were a couple that were so vague and unclear, I wasn’t even sure how to solve them. It’s one thing to put too much information in a word problem and make sure the kid knows how to eliminate it to create the correct equation. But purposely wording problems to deceive kids is not the proper way to test students on their knowledge.

I could talk your ear off for an hour about how our teachers shouldn’t have to teach towards a test, and how students would learn better without the pressure of a standardized test, how each student is an individual and should be taught as such, but instead I’ll stick to the most concerning part for me; the stress. The fact that it drove my kids to tears… it’s just not a fair assessment of what they are capable of. I think the US government needs to enforce a pretest, and a posttest rather than one standardized test so we can measure our student’s progress. The government should form a committee of teachers to help make the tests. I would like to see America regain it’s status as a competing country in education, but I do not think standardized testing is the way to do that.