Standardized: Lies, Money, and Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” –Albert Einstein
America, land of the free, land of liberty, land of the American dream, home of standardized testing. Art, sports, and music programs removed from the educational curriculum. After school programs, gym, and recess used to prep for high stakes testing. In a world where individuality and creativity are essential components of hope and prosperity, standardized tests have forced our children of tomorrow’s future to conform. We now teach our children to believe their educational worth is solely based on a number.
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A standardized test is a single way of looking at how a student knows the material, but students do not learn one single way nor do teachers teach a single way. Innovation and individuality have ceased from schools, learning and teaching are no longer fun. As stated in the documentary Standardized, “35-45% of students will fail before they even take the test.” Therefore, how can we accurately compare our students to others when they did not have a chance from the beginning? Lack of school funding, hunger, sleep-deprived, depressed, and underfed students are suffering as more money funds standardized testing rather than the welfare of these children. Today’s politicians focus on improving policies in which they know nothing about. Until politicians have worked with children every day in a classroom and can understand what it means to engage students in learning, how the students learn, and why they enjoy school so much, he will never understand how to use a standardized test and it results. Instead, they are stressing children forcing them to take a high stakes test beginning as early as 6-years old. Never mind the pressure they are putting on our children, as long as they are in office and continue