Editorial

I've always maintained a policy of never editorializing issues. I've always felt that my job is just to report the facts, but in this case I feel that sharing view might help the students in Garden City's schools. Standardized testing was one of the subjects debated at last week's work session of the Board of Education. I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the subject.

My high school used grades earned throughout the first semester and recommendations from teachers to determine placement into honors classes and it worked quite well. Occasionally there were problems such as a student didn't shine in the classroom until after the decision was made and then it was too late to place them into the appropriate class. A means for allowing students whose performance drastically improves after a cut-off date should be built into the system. If performance is not the tool used for placement, rather a test taken during the year is, there is never any opportunity for improvement to be rewarded. That's tremendously discouraging to students.

As far as corruption being inherent in a system which employs teacher evaluations or recommendations, I always found that if a student felt a teacher incorrectly failed to recommend them that they could appeal to the teacher's superiors and have his/her decision overturned. And as for those "teacher's pets" who were recommended based on politics and not merit, they soon revealed themselves through their inability to handle the workload of the advanced classes and were told to find a more appropriate class.

When I was in the third grade I was out for pneumonia, acute bronchitis, strep, flu --you name it. I returned to school one day to be told that I had missed a battery of tests including an IQ test, all of which I had to make up at once. Because everyone had already taken their tests, I had to take mine alone in another room. The only one available was a rather small storage room. I was told not to come out until I finished. Being claustrophobic and having a wild imagination, I convinced myself that the room was shrinking and the noises from behind the empty boxes all around me were being made by rats. In the midst of my anxiety attack I began to need a bathroom, but I was expressly forbidden to leave until finished, so I snuck out hoping no one would find out I'd left . My test results probably say (and I don't know because I have no interest in finding out) that I'm three rungs below Forest Gump.

Two years later, another standardized test was presented as a fun opportunity to write two creative essays. I outscored the rest of the students in my grade at that elementary school (as my teacher happily reported to me).

If an administrator had to decide where to put me based on test scores, which test results would they use? In less extreme cases this principle is still at work. A child may be well enough to go to school one day, but not to take a test by which their academic career will be based. One off day and they're misplaced.

How do we create these standards? What information is sought and what information is really obtained? According to a standardized guidance department test the valedictorian of my graduating class was told to become a bus driver and I was told to be a carpenter in the army.

As I sat in my graduate level courses I laughed as I recalled the GRE tests we all had to take to help ensure our admittance into the program. The questions did not in any way reflect the material I read or the kinds of thesis papers I was composing. In no way did the sequel to the SATs truly measure the skills or knowledge I had gained in my undergraduate career nor did it serve as an indication of what kind of abilities I would further develop in my graduate studies.

Who writes these tests and why do we still use them?

Amy Edel