Four times. Four times is the number of times I completed the Keystone tests and also the amount of times I failed the Keystone tests.
For those of you who don’t know what the Keystone tests are, they're Pennsylvania’s version of the standardized test. It is a test that should tell you where each individual should be in their academic journey.
Standardized testing escalated in 2002 when the No Child Left Behind Act ordered standardized testing to be mandatory all across the nation. According procon.org, standardized testing is a result of the United States falling to number 31 in the world from number 18 in just nine years, in the area of mathematics. Because of that, the government reformed the education process and created testing that every child must endure in the school system.
I have always done poorly in math. The earliest I remembered struggling with math would be in fourth grade. I just couldn’t get those damn times tables. From then on, I struggled with math. I had taken standardized testing before. I went through the PSSAs in elementary and middle school. I had to exchange my Lisa Frank pencils for plain yellow No. 2 pencils. They would give everyone a water bottle and hard candy. We would stay in the class all day and the teacher would recite the instructions verbatim. We were told to do our best and then given the next four hours with short breaks in between to complete a test -- sometimes, with information and questions I never had been presented with before. These tests were almost fun in elementary and middle school. When I got to high school however, It. Got. Real.
It started in ninth grade. I hadn’t taken Algebra 1 yet, because I had tested low in my classes in middle school. I was in the lower math classes all throughout school. So since I had not taken Algebra 1 yet, it was anticipated that I wouldn’t do well on the test. And I didn’t. So I had to repeat the Keystone again in 10th grade. I was just taking Algebra 1 in school and not doing well in the class despite all the extra help I was getting, so I failed again. The state was not giving up on me, though. When junior year rolled around, I took the test again. Another failed attempt. I was frustrated because I wanted to pass this test, so I would do the take home practice tests and do the problems at home and try my best.
Senior year, I had a meeting with the head of the math department at my school and she said if I didn’t pass these tests, my graduation could be in jeopardy. My graduation?! I was confused because I had a full plate of Honors that I was doing very well in and was on the Honor Roll at school. How could my graduation be in jeopardy over a test that the state is administering? I realized that the school didn’t really care if I did well in math or actually learned it; they just needed me to pass a test that would not benefit me personally at all.
I took the test again senior year and did not pass and, thankfully, it did not impact my graduation date. However, I think we need to stop putting so much stress on kids today in the school system to pass these tests. The graduating class of 2016 needs to pass these tests in order to graduate. It doesn’t make sense to take away something from a student who has been working the past 13 years to complete, in order for the school to acquire more funding from the state. There is already so much stress put on kids today and the school has them worrying about tests that don’t benefit them. These tests don’t take into consideration the individual learning style of a child, how creative the child is, or what’s going on in their personal lives. But as long as they can calculate algebraic functions, both the school and the state are happy. I understand there has to be some bar that children across the state need to be at academically for their grade, but what I don’t understand is the importance the schools push onto children who are doing well in school.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein
