“Are you aware that you can opt your son out of the state standardized testing?…”
The principal of Jonny’s school met me at the curb while I was picking him up.
We had discussed this at length at Jonny’s last IEP meeting. Jonny is in 3rd grade now, and that is the year standardized testing starts. I had told them my wife and I would talk about it (opting him out). Personally, I put no merit in the measurement of one’s academic potential by a universal standard.
Einstein once said, “If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid.”
But Jonny is “behind.” He works with specialists and interventionists for half his school day. Developmentally, even though he is in 3rd grade (and was even held back a year), he would probably still test around the first grade level…
Meaning… if he were to test using a 3rd grade standard, he would fail. Unquestionably.
His teachers had informed us that we can “opt out” of the test altogether and he would just take a “0” and save himself the stress of it.
Much of the test he won’t be able to access. He has regressed in many of his skills. I can see the appeal of opting out. Making him take the test would be “setting him up for failure.”
But something just irks at me. If Jonny just “doesn’t take the test,” he will have no baseline of where he started. Nowhere he can look back on to see how far he has progressed in the future…
But that’s not entirely it either….
Look, here’s the thing. He is learning more at school than just “academics.” He is also learning about life. And in life, sometimes you are gonna fail.
… but it doesn’t mean you don’t give it your best, just because you won’t succeed. Who knows? You might surprise yourself.
Success or failure in life isn’t measured by the score of a standardized test.
Often times we don’t know what we can do because we never put the time and effort in to really TRY.
My Dad was my coach growing up and I can’t help but break it down into sports terminology.
Sometimes, you are going to be playing against teams that are FAR superior to you. They are more talented, bigger, stronger and faster than you and if it’s a BLOWOUT, you’ll be lucky.
How do you play that game?
YOU PLAY IT TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITIES.
Did you give your best effort? Did you finish strong? Did you “compete” to the very end?
Nobody will fault you for failing, but there is NO EXCUSE for not even trying.
(In my “very humble” opinion)
What are your thoughts about ‘standardized tests?’