A Teacher Letter to the New York State Dept. of Ed.
To Whom it May Concern:
I firmly oppose any initiative that continues (or expands) the current regime of standardized testing. As an educator, I know that standardized tests are not humane, nor developmentally appropriate.
We are currently studying and writing non-fiction in my second grade classroom. It is beautiful to hear students teach all about topics that they know and love, like ice cream, outer space, insects and more. As part of the study, I decided to invite two of my students from last year into my classroom to share their work. I first had to walk to my school’s satellite location (because we don’t have enough space in our school to house all of our students) and pick up the girls. “Rianna and Jen! Chris is here to bring you to his class!” their teacher announced. Their faces brightened, as they pulled on their hats and mittens and zipped up their jackets. As we were walking and discussing life in third grade I hear Jen say, “I’m nervous about the test,” under her breath. I asked her why, “I just want to do ok. My mom wants me to do ok.” Jen added, “Yeah, my mom got me lots of test prep books. I want to do ok too.” In that moment, I did not know how to respond to my former students, who moments before were
