Letter to the Editor: "The Standardization of Our Children"

As the mother of a child in third grade who has just taken her first MSA test, it saddens me that we need to put our children through the unnecessary stress of testing and retesting at such an early age. 

The need to quantify the education that they need has led to many school curriculums being geared toward the standardized test. 

This will be a lost generation, a generation that is taught to answer in brief concise answers, not encouraged to explore outside the box. 

Are we warehousing our children and stifling their creativity, in an environment that begs to be changed?  Does it really matter that we know that our children are on a par with other children in the school system.  Should our children’s education not be geared toward their needs and their level of intelligence and yet, how do we measure that intelligence? Is it not our job, as parents to work with educators at every level to ensure that we are not buying into this culture of testing?

Maybe, if we step back and question why we need such testing, we could help change the way our education system is run and maybe help unlock our children’s potential in a less structured and stressful way.

- Melanie Greenhill