Opting for Wimphood

I have mixed sentiments regarding the standardized tests administered by the educational system.

On one hand, they are very useful in apprising students and parents as to where the child stands.  On the other hand, the standardized test as a predictor of a child's future, while highly reliable, is not 100% accurate, and educators can misguide at least a small percentage of students if standardized test scores are the sole evaluative criteria used.

I myself have always done well on standardized tests, from the third grade ones to the Multistate Bar Exam.

Quite frankly, I have seen the quality of school administration/administrators decrease since the time I was a student.  I have seen it from the perspective of a taxpayer, a parent, a college faculty member, and a former board member of a non-public school.

So I have nothing against standardized testing per se.  My chariness is based upon the misuses to which the various standardized tests can be put, whether against individual students or in the administration of the tests themselves.

And the misusers are not necessarily the school administrators who administer the standardized tests, or those who use the scores of standardized tests to classify students or prospective students.  A misuser can be a parent who refuses to allow their child to take a standardized test.  In fact, the organized parental standardized test refusers are tied in with the OccuShmucks who made such a mess (figurative and literal) of Wall Street.

There are valid reasons for a parent to refuse to allow his or her child(ren) to sit for a standardized test.  But then again, some parents, such as Jeanette Deutermann of North Bellmore, New York, opt out their children because they cannot bear to see their little darlings having to focus their energies towards meeting the challenges of the standardized testing.

Such parents are shmucks.  Worse yet, many of the children they are raising are being put on the path to developing into irresponsible, fawning wimps who will not be able to think for themselves.  The proliferation of such people in the population, of course, makes it far, far easier for tyrants to take over the nation.