Lacey Slekar – our Newest Student Hero
On May 22, 2015, 12 year old Lacey Slekar stood in front of the Board of Education in her school district and tried to convince the adults in the room that standardized testing is bad for children. Her speech was eloquent, well-organized, and very persuasive. She is a hero for writing and delivering a speech that truly presented the student point of view.
Her father, Tim Slekar who writes the Busted Pencils:Fully Leaded Education Talk blog and pod-cast, was not aware his daughter was even researching this topic. As Tim writes in his own blog post,
“Lacey wrote a research paper about standardized testing. We had no idea she was doing this until she asked Tim for some advise. She felt very strongly about sharing her findings with the school board. Her teachers encouraged her to read it, so she did. Wow, very proud of our BustED Pencils Student Correspondent.”
Here is the video of this student hero fighting to eliminate standardized testing from her school:
And here is the text of her persuasive speech:
Hello, my name is Lacey Slekar and I am a student at Badger Ridge middle school. I am here to share with you my concerns about standardized testing. I believe Standardized testing should be banned from all schools.
First of all, Standardized testing causes harmful stress on students. The stress and pressure put on students is not healthy. It can cause kids to cry, vomit, and get angry with themselves, or all at the same time. Students should not have to take the whole year preparing and stressing over one test that doesn’t even Lacey Slekar – our Newest Student Hero | Poetic Justice: