May. The month wasted on testing.
The last 6 weeks grading period really is wasted on testing. There is no way for a teacher to hold a class with all this crazy testing going on. Every day class is held in a different classroom, some days half of the students are gone—or all of them. Students are missing out on instructional time that could be beneficial for AP testing, which will save them some serious money, for an EOC test that most students “zigg zagg” on their scantron anyways.
Who could blame the students who stop coming to school? The whole last month has been pointless at best. Testing is wasting the time of students, teachers, and testing administrators. The EOC test only counts for freshmen right now. Think of all the more time and energy put into that test when it is given to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
I’m sure teachers are just ecstatic to have another test to teach to. STAAR, EOC, TAKS, and AP tests. Students are no longer being taught information. They’re being taught how to be tested. Students should be tested on how they are learning. Not learning how to be tested.
These tests are getting out of hand. The state needs to get into the schools and look at what is going on in classrooms rather than just shooting out tests hoping that the schools meet blind guidelines. We want students to be raised as curious learners, students who desire to go and do things and explore large ideas. Instead, we are raising students to be memorizers. Memorizing is not bad, but it is taking the place of learning. Students are memorizing answers and concepts, but they don’t know why. They know how to get the right answer, but they don’t know WHY they got the right answer other than it was right on the practice test, or the book said so.
Our generation is the future. If the state wants test takers to be our future, please, by all means continue testing. We want our future to surpass our past, and that requires great thinkers. Great thinkers and great leaders simply will not be cultivated by test taking. The state needs to abolish this unnecessary testing for the sake of our future, and for the sake of their future.