SUSAN OHANIAN - The political mania for inflicting high-stakes tests on
students has reached such insanity that Harcourt, publisher of the
widely used Stanford 9 test, sends out instructions on what a teacher
should do when nervous children vomit on the tests (Soiled tests cannot
be discarded but must be returned to Harcourt.) No one seems to be
stepping forward to demand that schools discontinue practices that make
kids vomit. Instead, a principal in San Diego insists that
kindergartners must take pre-Stanford-9 tests, declaring "Unless
students become familiar with the exam format, they cannot zero in on
the academic skills. Try passing a bar exam without preparation."
Hello. This is kindergarten.
Standardistas call it more intense kindergarten instruction. We should
call it child abuse. We must defy federal bullying and return
kindergarten to its roots-a children's garden. Kindergarten should be
joyful. Every day. It should be a song. Every day. So should first grade
and third grade and seventh grade. And yes, even high school. Childhood
should be returned to our children, not handed over to the get-'em-
ready machine for the global economy, the machine that insists schools
must sort kids into winners and losers and serve them up to the
marketplace. Remember, they only get one childhood.
Now, children in Atlanta have no recess. The superintendent of schools
insists that they need to know that school is serious business and
there's no time to waste hanging from monkey bars. Now, we surround
children with fear. A Manatee County Florida kindergartner asked his
mom, "When am I going to have to take the FCAT?" An 8-year-old in Texas
comes home sobbing. He's worried that he and his classmates won't do
well on the state test and then his teacher will lose her job and her
children will starve because she won't have money to buy them food.
Now, homework mania dominates family life. In Virginia, a third grader
brought home 45 pages of multiple choice drill sheets. Test prep
material. If she gets a parent's signature testifying that she has spent
45 minutes a night on those sheets for the eight days preceding the day
of the state test, she gets to attend an ice cream and cake party.
Homework pressure causes children around the country to drop ballet and
soccer.