Dear Senator President Pro Tem Del Marsh,
I am not a number. Much like you, I am a human being that experiences life and struggles that simply can not be captured within the confines of a numerical value. I have feelings and emotions, skills and talents, dreams and ideas, that can never be captured through the scratched and dirty lens of a test.
Students already live in an education system destroyed from its original values and intent. Learning is not the objective anymore, competition to earn the highest marks, however, is of the upmost importance. The current system promotes rote memorization that is stored not in the long term memory, but in the short term to be forgotten following the beloved tests. The education system is the wreckage of statistics and that of a bejeweled facade. Higher test scores appear to mean higher educated citizens, and yet the work force is becoming increasingly overwhelmed by college graduates inept and unprepared for their job because they spent all their time preparing for a test.
While I applaud your idea of offering an incentive system towards teachers, the unnecessary inclusion of test scores in the system is a crack that can lead to a complete shattering of education as we know it. Tests have too long been the judgement of worth. It is time to evolve and change to meet needs that are otherwise not being met. It is important to have a basic knowledge of all subjects in order to be a well rounded individual, but instead of drilling things such as imaginary numbers, and Avagadro's number to be memorized then forgotten, students should learn the hands-on skills required of them on the job. As a writer I do not intend to ever work in a field that requires me to know how to properly make use of imaginary numbers, but it would be beneficial for me to learn the skills of my trade (such as interview techniques, formal writing courses, etc.). The system is creating a generation of workers that have been educated, but never trained. A flaw that is devastating not only on the workforce, but the debt in the state and country as well. As students graduate with less training and being less prepared in the daily tasks they must complete, employers become more wary of hiring the students. In turn, the higher unemployment rate equates to a higher rate of loans and student debt that can not be paid off and continues to accumulate.
I agree that tests must be utilized to make some judgement of learning, but there should also be a supplemental measurement. When studies are performed in any area of science, the scientists do not measure the outcomes through one variable alone, but many. In fact, a study that is performed using one variable is often discredited as incomplete, yet our education system continues to lift the throne that tests rest on while crushing any values that are outside of the test's reign. Why should creativity, innovation, bravery, analytical thinking, or character matter if the only thing required is a test? As a result academic conversation is executed. Children no longer gather and discuss the things that were taught in class or ask questions to clarify on the subjects that they are taught. Instead, students are terrified of speaking out, living in fear that to be wrong is to receive a low mark, to be graded as unworthy of education or appreciation.
I am still a student, and not a number. I could be the next J. K. Rowling, Mark Twain, or Robert Frost, but instead I am viewed as the score of the test I make and slowly that tiny spark of the great writers begins to fade from my mind. Students become entirely fixated on tests, scarcely recognizing or caring what it is that they are being tested on, so long as they can pass it. I am a student on scholarship, a student that was deemed worthy of education not because of the multiple publications I achieved by the time I was a junior in high school, or even because of the hundreds of hours in community service that I put in through various organizations, but because I just so happened to score well enough on the test that mattered. The ACT gave me the opportunity to study for more tests, while simultaneously kidnapping my aspirations and being the thief of literary creativity. Yet, I am the lucky one, not everyone goes face to face with the test and comes back unscathed. Change must happen if we wish to prevent the execution of our children in the education system. If we wish to lift each child up and to open their mind, then tests must be defeated, and that can start with you.
Sincerely,
Lauren Jackson
Test Survivor
In cramming we trust.
