A teacher’s troubling account of giving a 106-question standardized test to 11 year olds

Jessie B. Ramey, who teaches women’s studies and history at the University of Pittsburgh, recently became baffled after administrating a one hundred and six word reading diagnostic exam to her class of eleven year old students. The test consisted of the things such as students picking one of five pictures that corresponded with the sentence Ramey previously read aloud. Ramey herself even admitted that it took her several tries over a course of a few days to finally discover the correct answer for some of questions, so how are eleven year old students supposed to choose- or guess in many cases- the correct answer on their first try?

Ramey reminded the students before they began their test that it was just to see where they were academically and that it would not in any way affect their grades, but they should still try their hardest to do it correctly and give one hundred percent of their effort towards presenting their best work. However, these standardized tests are not always the best thing in testing a students learning ability; many students suffer from test anxiety and do not do well on them.

Ramey noted that during the test, many of the students became disinterested and began to call the test “stupid”. The question is: Are the children right? Are these standardized tests “stupid”? Many people can agree that you cannot test a student’s intelligence by leaving them to answer hundreds of questions for long amounts of time. Some people will argue and say that they test the student’s ability to focus and commit to an assignment, but people have different techniques of learning… such as visual and verbally.

The main problem facing these standardized tests is that the scores received from them are often what helps colleges determine whether or not a student is accept in to their program. If a student is simply not a good test taker, this can ruin their chances of being accepted to a good college, therefore, possibly making it harder for them to get employed in the future. When people cannot get employed this raises the percentage of people living under the poverty line in our country. Because of this, many things will begin to change in our economy, such as health care, economic security, and economic stability.

In order to keep this from happening in our future, we only have one thing we really have to change… standardized test!