Rank and File

You want to know something I'm most certainly not going to miss when I'm out of school? Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway, the testing. I hated all those scan trons, the standardized tests that put you in rank with other students in your grade and made you feel like a fool when you did poorly. I never really did that badly I was always in top 5-20% in the nation when it came to the ITEDS and ITBS tests we've taken yearly since third grade, which I think gave me a blown-up ego. I know when my scores slipped when I hit 10th grade, I was devastated, I felt like dirt...It kind of makes me wonder how the kids who see those scores year after year feel. Surely it can't be a good feeling to see on that paper you did better than 20 kids out of 100. There are 80 kids out of every 100 that are smarter than you, is what it basically says.

I think the testing and ranking should be removed from school ritual. I know our school is named 'one of the best in the nation,' but really, the people who give our school those titles don't see what our school is like. I'm sure there are schools out there worse than ours as far as 'student character' what not goes, but....In my humble opinion, we're not as great as we make ourselves out to be. In my eyes, it's more of a mix between morals and academics that would make a school 'one of the best in the nation'.

Test scores and GPA and all that are only a statistical look at a school-- it doesn't give a personal view. If you want to really wanted to give the school an award (this goes for any school, not just ours) the representatives from those organizations who give the awards should spend a few weeks observing the school-- to get a feel for how things really are, don't just give us awards we earn on numbers alone!