I was extremely aggravated over the stories about plans to have new college tests required of high school juniors. It seems to me that the intent is that there will be an incentive to do well on these tests (as opposed to the traditional achievement tests). These tests are meant to produce better students. I think this new method is a huge step backward in the field of education. The stress of such high stakes simply does not improve performance. I assume that this new policy was formed in conjunction with education experts, yet I cannot fathom how these so-called experts could fail so miserably at grasping the rather basic concept that there are many types of intelligence, and not all perform well on tests despite the presence of a high IQ. Another example of this penalization of capable students is an 8th grade boy who, though an A/B student, did not do well on the new matriculation tests and, therefore, has to attend summer school. These matriculation tests are another policy that I fully disapprove of, but I feel that the issue is basically the same: Even if students have proved in their performance over the entire year that they are capable, a few hours of tests can smash hundreds of hours of hard work to pieces.
What kind of a message is that sending–that hard work doesn’t pay off?
