November 7th, 2016

Letter to the Next President

Dear Future President,

First off I would would like to congratulate you on your win. I hope that you can help fix this problem; I would like your help to change the requirement of standardized testing. These standardized test reek many hardships on children's lives. The following reasons I’m listing are just a few of poor effects of standardized testing.

To start with, standardized testing costs a lot of money, a lot of money that could be put to better use. David Berliner of Arizona State University agrees, he says that this money should be used for “paying to out-of-school factors, such as child poverty, family violence, nutrition, and race and ethnicity” (Koh, Tsin Yen). Issitt, Micah L. and McMahon, Maureen also writes that “federal funding could be better used to improve pay rates and benefits for teachers, especially since tenure and reappointment are often based on test scores.” This shows that it is not just me who disagrees with standardized testing, others do too. According to a news report by the Washington-based Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution calculated that states spend $1.7 billion all together on tests. This is a lot of money that could be used to help children with more important things. We could maybe use this money to feed children or make sure they have a warm happy house to go home to. If children are starving and living on the streets, standardized testing is going to be the least of their worries. So maybe we should spend more money on helping children get something to eat, rather than on a test that will be forgotten about a couple weeks after.

These tests are also unfair. Some children are just poor test takers. So why should one test define a whole students year? Maybe the student just is not a good test taker, but is more of a hands on learner. These tests do not allow students to show all they really know. Badertscher, Eric and Newton, Heather made a great point saying, “Standardized tests do not take into account the uniqueness of each child, with his or her own individual learning style, and the academic progress each student has made over the course of a school year.” Each student has a different way of learning and showing they know the material, but these test do not give these children those options. “Even children with high intelligence may find themselves placed in remedial courses if they do not perform well on standardized tests” (Badertscher, Eric and Newton, Heather). A child may be very successful in school and completely understand the lessons, but then perform poorly on the test. Because schools only look at the test scores they would think the student did not understand anything and that the child should not be allowed to advance onto the next grade. But how fair is that? It is not.

Nevertheless these test also cause children to over stress. I am a perfect example of this. I am a very stressful person in general, but these test make it even worse. I know I am not the only child that worries about these test. In the back of your mind while you are taking the test all you can think about is “What if I fail? I will have to repeat this grade again.” While taking the test those are not the thoughts that should be going through your head. You should be able to focus on the material in front of you so you can succeed. But taking the test is not the only stressful part, but the weeks and even months leading up to the test are also very stressful. A couple months before the test all we do in class is practice problem after practice problem. Teachers do not even know exactly what kind of questions are going to be on the test. Because of this, teachers try to refresh kids on problems that took all year to teach. This causes kids to become stressed because they are trying to remember lots and lots of information, just for one test. I am a prime example of being too stressed about these test. They would cause me to have headaches which would lead to migraines. These migraines would cause me to become very sick and sometimes even though up. So why are you putting kids through all of this stress? All this pressure and stress is highly harmful for their health.

I hope this was very eye-opening for you, and you will really consider fixing it. These tests are just unfair, overly expensive, and a threat to children's health. Hopefully you can come up with a better system for schools to rate children on. And I hope they will not be so harmful to children. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

McKenzie 

                                                                      Works Cited Page

Badertscher, Eric, and Heather Newton. “Counterpoint: National Education Standards Overlook Individuals and Local Communities.” Points of View: Standardized Testing, Mar. 2016, p. 3. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&an=12462181&site=pov-live&authtype=cookie,ip,custuid&custid=infohio.

Badertscher, Eric, and Heather Newton. “Counterpoint: National Education Standards Overlook Individuals and Local Communities.” Points of View: Standardized Testing, Mar. 2016, p. 3. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&an=12462181&site=pov-live&authtype=cookie,ip,custuid&custid=infohio.

Issitt, Micah L., and Maureen Mcmahon. “Standardized Testing: An Overview.” Points of View: Standardized Testing, Mar. 2016, p. 1. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&an=23463780&site=pov-live&authtype=cookie,ip,custuid&custid=infohio.

Koh, Tsin Yen. “Counterpoint: The Common Core Distracts from More Fundamental Reforms in Public Education.” Points of View: Common Core State Standards, Mar. 2016, p. 1. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&an=96222713&site=pov-live&authtype=cookie,ip,custuid&custid=infohio.