An Ode To The Big Tests
Here’s to you.Here’s to the students who will be pelted with Scantron sheets and test booklets emblazoned with the shape of New York State, a place they’ve explored so little.
Here’s to the students who, after 140 days of mixed concentration for varied reasons, will be asked to focus all their energies on answering 50+ multiple choice and 9+ extended response questions they’ll have to take over the course of three days for English … and 3 days for math.
Here’s to the students who have different accommodations, whose friends only get 90 minutes of torture a day when they have to sit there for 120 or 180 minutes, wasting their lives away slowly by this excruciating process.
Here’s to the students who get labels like ELL (English Language Learner) and also have the misfortune of making it to eight grade, where a kid has to take an ELA, Math, Science, ESL, Field Test, and city-administered