Several hundred students in Massachusetts decided to find out for themselves last week when they boycotted state-mandated exams for high school sophomores, exams students must eventually pass in order to graduate. And these students are not the first in the nation to protest high-stakes tests. Students, parents, and even some teachers in Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin have recently rallied against tests now required in many states to graduate or move from one education level to the next. The protesters claim the tests don't really measure what students know, and they say test preparation takes classroom time away from learning other, more important, material.
Students usually know a great deal less than they think they do.
In international assessments of mathematics and science, for example, American students routinely rank themselves as very knowledgeable, but score near the bottom of national rankings, nonetheless. And this problem may not entirely be the students' fault. Educators have been so concerned about building student self-esteem that they've forgotten the importance of teaching kids the very things that would give them some basis for satisfaction. One education psychologist recently told me about his experience testing reading comprehension among a group of middle-class kids in Denver. In discussions, the students seemed very bright, and most came from affluent homes.