more stupid acronyms

It's March in Maryland, so there's only one acronym on the mind of anyone associated with a public school, especially the parents of the students who will be spending LOTS of time filling in bubbles with their No. 2 pencils this month-- the MSA, or Maryland School Assessment for those not under its spell.

I remember taking some standardized tests back in my days of elementary school- we did an Iowa and a California test, which always confused the hell out of me, seeing as we lived in Connecticut. But, all I remember was that we took the tests for a couple of days, and that was about it. I don't recall them being mentioned much, if at all, before the actual testing days and from what I can remember, there was no specific preparation for those particular tests. We all know that I'm an anxious adult, so it should come as no surprise that I was an anxious child, and even without any real pressure or big to do about the testing, I remember that I still freaked out internally.

Now I'm the parent of an anxious child, and the letters MSA have been in his vocabulary since they were introduced within the first week of school last year in the third grade, the first level that is tested. By the time March rolled around, he became increasingly vocal about his concerns about the test, and at one point he even burst out with his fear that he wouldn't pass third grade if he did poorly on the tests!

Dear lord. Is this what we call education?? I'm disgusted with how the No Child Left Behind crap has influenced the way teachers are expected (or allowed) to teach, and I'm saddened by the implicit pressure that is part of the whole MSA shebang. Last year when he freaked out, I made a decision that may or may not have been the best parenting choice of my career. I told him not to worry about the stupid tests at all. I told him to do his best, but that nothing bad at all would happen if he completely failed the tests. Nada. I wouldn't care. His grades wouldn't be affected. All that it would mean was that he didn't pass one single test- no indication of what he had learned all year and no assessment of the 10 months of work he busted his butt on. Nothing. It would be a number on a piece of paper, and that was all.

Thankfully, his teacher this year is pretty low key about the whole thing- I don't hear him majorly stressing about the process, only complaining that he's expected to sit still and be quiet for those periods of time of the actual testing. And that he can't read a book after he's finished each section, which is a travesty to him. But in a school where the first thing that's announced to parents on Back to School Night is the Almighty Test Scores (can you hear the chorus of angels in the background??), it's inevitable that he's being sent the message that this one test is the be all and end all of his education. And that is a Mighty Senseless Assertion, if you ask me.


Often wishing that I had the fortitude to home school,