5th Grader's Smart Advice About Standardized Testing

Fifth grader Joel has a message for schools and politicians.  

"State testing is bad for the tax payers of New York because they waste 11.1 billion dollars a year."

Joel shares that some countries have stopped and have saved a bundle. He also lets adults know that sometimes tests make kids nervous and they bubble the wrong answer.


Joel shares a graphic in his article that illustrates that tests are not really important to the children being tested.  For those who want to know if students were listening in class, he advises, “That is what a report card is for.” He explains that it makes more sense to judge students using this report of their performance than does judging children from one test.  

Finally young Joel advises that state testing is bad for lots of people because the capable might fail and get bad jobs because they just aren’t the type of kids that can pass state exams.

Smart kid.  Read and comment on his piece here.