Standardized Tests Quotes

We are raising today's children in sterile, risk-averse and highly structured environments. In so doing, we are failing to cultivate artists, pioneers and entrepreneurs, and instead cultivating a generation of children who can follow the rules in organized sports games, sit for hours in front of screens and mark bubbles on standardized tests. ~ Darell Hammond

While standardized tests can certainly be useful for scientifically investigating the mind and brain, and can greatly inform educational interventions, there's no reason why educators or anyone else for that matter needs to compare the intelligence of one person to another based on a single dimension of human variation. ~ Scott Barry Kaufman

For those of you who may be homeschooled: high school is that four-year asylum where they put teenagers because we have no idea what else to do with them. ~ Anthony M. Esolen

We are creating a one size fits all system that needlessly brands many young people as failures, when they might thrive if offered a different education whose progress was measured differently. Paradoxically we're embracing standardized tests just when the economy is eliminating standardized jobs. ~ Robert Reich

...a school's worth should be measured not by how its students perform on standardized tests but by how well they function as adult graduates of the school... ~ Terry Roberts

The whole concept of higher education is negated unless the sole criterion used to determine if students qualify is the grades they score on standardized tests. Education is purely an issue of learning - we can no longer afford to have it polluted by damn politics. Leave pollution up to the politicians ~ Ray Bradbury

A frightening number of whom had IQ scores in the low 70s? I stopped reading and just stuck the records out of sight in a bottom drawer of my desk, and never thought of them again until the end of the year when I was throwing away the accumulation of papers in my desk. I was furious with those scores. My kids were not dumb! I've never trusted standardized tests since. ~ Katherine Paterson

Standardized state tests are a scam! The educational system is rigged. It is set up to where the wealthy schools, get all of the state funding. The poverty-stricken schools, don't get enough funding due to standardized tests scores. See my point? ~ Mary Sage Nguyen

This framing accents the importance of building a tidier system, one that incorporates the array of existing child care centers, then pushes to make their classrooms more uniform, with a socialization agenda "aligned" with the curricular content that first or second graders are expected to know. Like the common school movement, uniform indicators of quality, centralized regulation, more highly credientialed teachers are to ensure that instruction
rather than creating engaging activities for children to explore
will be delivered in more uniform ways. And the state signals to parents that this is now the appropriate way to raise one's three- or four-year-old. Modern child rearing is equated with systems building in the eyes of universal pre-kindergarten advocates
and parents hear this discourse through upbeat articles in daily newspapers, public service annoucement, and from school authorities. ~ Bruce Fuller

The democratization of media means that anyone with a phone can become a celebrity. Our short-sighted focus on self-esteem in children means that everyone gets a trophy, universities and education are "brands" instead of places of learning, standardized tests
are used to assess wisdom, and grade inflation is rampant. The tribe has been replaced with followers and likes. Our economy, our bodies, our health, our children, and frankly our psyches are in big trouble. ~ Ramani Durvasula

The overemphasis on standardized tests forces teachers to teach the same restricted, unintuitive curriculum. Longtime educator Brent Evans has said that today's schools are organized as assembly lines, "(running at a set speed) and with each worker (teacher) at designated places (way levels) on the assembly line performing predetermined actions on products (students) considered to be somewhat generic (one-size-fits-all) and passive (waiting to be filled or formed to the desired shape). ~ Brent Evans

Now the problem with standardized tests is that it's based on the mistake that we can simply scale up the education of children like you would scale up making carburetors. And we can't, because human beings are very different from motorcars, and they have feelings about what they do and motivations in doing it, or not. ~ Ken Robinson

If they had given standardized tests in assassin school, he would not have lasted a day. ~ Charlie Jane Anders

But the Turing test cuts both ways. You can't tell if a machine has gotten smarter or if you've just lowered your own standards of intelligence to such a degree that the machine seems smart. If you can have a conversation with a simulated person presented by an AI program, can you tell how far you've let your sense of personhood degrade in order to make the illusion work for you?

People degrade themselves in order to make machines seem smart all the time. Before the crash, bankers believed in supposedly intelligent algorithms that could calculate credit risks before making bad loans. We ask teachers to teach to standardized tests so a student will look good to an algorithm. We have repeatedly demonstrated our species' bottomless ability to lower our standards to make information technology look good. Every instance of intelligence in a machine is ambiguous.

The same ambiguity that motivated dubious academic AI projects in the past has been repackaged as mass culture today. Did that search engine really know what you want, or are you playing along, lowering your standards to make it seem clever? While it's to be expected that the human perspective will be changed by encounters with profound new technologies, the exercise of treating machine intelligence as real requires people to reduce their mooring to reality. ~ Jaron Lanier

Don't let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures. The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered. ~ Alfie Kohn

I am not against standardized tests. There are tests and tests and tests, and, to simplify, the ones I favor are criterion-referenced tests of skills, aligned with the curriculum. Social and emotional skills are important but skills are too. I find it heartbreaking that this is so often seen as an either-or choice. To get to the richness of studying literature, for example, you must first be an adept and confident reader. Whether you are is something a good test can measure. ~ Nicholas Lemann

Manuel was sent to Harvard, where he developed a profound contempt for American culture. 'The Americans,' he would say, 'brush their teeth before kissing and remember a page to answer a question. ~ Warren Eyster

The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. But neither is it useless. SAT scores do measure both specific knowledge and valuable thinking skills. ~ Virginia Postrel

I read so slow. If I have a script, I'm going to read it five times slower than any other actor, but I'll be able to tell you everything in it. It kills me that there are standardized tests geared towards just one kind of child. ~ Channing Tatum

I'm not saying standardized tests are the worst ever, but there's an in-between and I don't think we're there yet. That's what I mean when I say I have an issue with it. There's no way a kid can learn in a class with 40 to 45 people. I had the power to get out of that system and pursue things that I wanted to do and I did that. ~ Ashley Rickards

Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose. Why do we have immigration laws? What's with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards - why not make heroin legal? Let's take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens! ~ Ann Coulter

Irresponsibility. Maria's never been irresponsible. When she was little, she was responsible for protecting everybody else from her own shit around her gender - responsible for making sure her parents didn't have to have a weird kid. Of course, then they had a weird, sad kid anyway, right? Whatever. That's when responsibility at the expense of self became a habit: she did not care about school, but she knew her parents would be sad if she didn't go to college, since certain things are expected from you when you do well on standardized tests, so she scraped by and paid attention. Then, with drugs, it's like, she took them all, but always in such moderation that it wasn't really dangerous. Even when she was throwing up or incoherent, it was in a controlled situation. She never went to jail, never had the police bring her home, never got caught breaking curfew or went to the hospital or anything. And then she came to New York, paid her rent, had a job, kept her head down, had relationships with people where making the relationship run smoothly was more important than being present in it. Which did not work. It's clear that being responsible has not been a positive force in her life. It has been fucking everything up. ~ Imogen Binnie

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon. ~ Virginia Foxx

Every comrade must be brought to understand that the supreme test of the words and deeds of a Communist is whether they conform with the highest interests and enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of the people. ~ Mao Zedong

When I was in 10th grade, I took one of those tests that's supposed to tell you what you should be when you grow up. The test told me that I should be a journalist. ~ Megyn Kelly

The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn. ~ Joseph Addison

Modern research divides nature into tiny pieces and conducts tests that conform neither with natural law nor with practical experience. The results are arranged for the convenience of research, not according to the needs of the farmer. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

The spiritual test inherent in all our lives is the challenge to discover what motivates us to make the choices we do, and whether we have faith in our fears or the Divine ... ~ Caroline Myss

A lot of folks, they got a little bit of shine to them. They don't even know it. But they always seem to show up with flowers when their wives are feelin blue with the monthlies, they do good on school tests they don't even study for, they got a good idea how people are feelin as soon as they walk into a room. ~ Stephen King

Adversity tests us from time to time and it is inevitable that this testing continues during life. ~ Walter Annenberg

The test of sincerity of one's prayer is the willingness to labor on its behalf. ~ Saint John Chrysostom

Love isn't locking yourselves in or hiding where everything is perfect. Love is facing the world and its tests together, even if you fail them. ~ Soman Chainani

Percy hated tests. Since he'd lost his memory, his whole life was one big fill-in-the-blank. He was _____, from _____. He felt like _____, and if the monsters caught him, he'd be _____. ~ Rick Riordan

This particular examination had proven exceedingly useful because when the second-generation Prius was released in the mid-2000s, some wondered whether Toyota had cheated on the fuel economy tests. ~ Steve Levine

Arsenic sticks around and today it's easily found after death if somebody thinks of looking for it, because the problem with arsenic, it isn't looked for in the common tests for drugs. ~ Michael Baden

Patrick thought we should try to put an audience in front of one of the workshops, basically in front of the class and see how the performers rose to having an audience there, because he said, "You know, it's a really interesting test, because sometimes it gets even funnier." ~ Brian Henson

Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men. Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person's qualities but on trust. It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

When God anoints a person, a pattern of testing appears to take place at specific times in the leader's life. God often takes each leader through four major tests to determine if that person will achieve God's ultimate call on his or her life. The person's response to these tests is the deciding factor in whether they can advance to the next level of responsibility in God's Kingdom. ~ Os Hillman

I think the real test is to plan something and be able to carry it out to the very end. Not that you're always enthusiastic; it's just that you have to get this thing out. It's not done with one's emotions; it's done with the head. ~ Richard Estes

With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report always being tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labor from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. ~ Thucydides

I don't believe in a perfect world. I don't believe it's achievable, and I believe the people who try to achieve it usually end up turning it into something like Cambodia or something very similar because purity tests set in. Are you ideologically pure enough to be allowed to live? Well, it turns out that very few people are, so you end up with a big powerful struggle and a mass killing scene. ~ Margaret Atwood

The test of character is having the ability to meet challenges. ~ Walter Annenberg

I'm in favour of drug tests, just so long as they are multiple choice. ~ Kurt Rambis

Parents make sure homework is returned without error, drill their kids on upcoming tests to the saturation point, and then complain if teachers do not give the grades they think their kids deserve. By that point, it's hard to tell whose grades they are. ~ John Rosemond

-Put on the lights there, now. Before we go any further here, has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you're not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from outside. In fact it's exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos ... ~ William Gaddis

A sense of responsibility in teaching pushes us constantly to think about and promote the best interests of our students. In contrast, the demand for accountability often induces mere compliance. ~ Nel Noddings

In his pursuit of the dream, he was being constantly subjected to tests of his persistence and courage. So he could not be hasty, nor impatient. If he pushed forward impulsively, he would fail to see the signs and omens left by God along his path.
God placed them along my path. ~ Paulo Coelho

To be creative, first I need to be really organized. If my apartment's messy I need to clean it. It's like before you start doing your homework or studying for a test, you have to have a clean room. ~ Demetri Martin

Dont test me, Second guess me, Protest me, You will DISAPEAR! (East Jesus of Nowhere) ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

Hurray for standardized valve systems! ~ Andy Weir

Wind is part of the British Open. It is an examination and it took me a long time to pass the examination. Eighty per cent of the fellows out there have not passed the test. ~ Gary Player

The test of a people is what they can do when they're tired. ~ Winston Churchill

The interview process tests not what the applicant knows, but how well they can process tricky questions: If you wanted to figure out how many times on average you would have to flip the pages of the Manhattan phone book to find a specific name, how would you approach the problem? If a spider fell to the bottom of a 50-foot well, and each day climbed up 3 feet and slipped back 2, how many days would it take the spider to get out of the well? . ~ Bill Gates

Carter is the only President to ever release his actual IQ from a standardized test; it was 176. That is higher than either Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, and is well into the genius level. ~ Robert Chamberlain

We're all good when it suits us, he used to say: that doesn't count. It's when you want so badly to do something wrong - when you're about to make a fortune from a dishonest deal, or kiss the lovely lips of your neighbor's wife, or tell a lie to get yourself out of terrible trouble - that's when you need the rules. Your integrity is like a sword, he would say: you shouldn't wave it until you're about to put it to the test. ~ Ken Follett

For each article, Upworthy writes a minimum of 25 different headlines. Then the company does various A/B tests with its subscription lists to see which headline led to the most e-mail opens and the most shares. ~ Joe Pulizzi

God never uses anyone greatly until He tests them deeply. ~ A.W. Tozer

You check the pregnancy test every month, and when it comes up negative it can start to wear on you ~ Cindy Margolis

Superstition requires no tests, no measurements, no proof: just faith. ~ Mike A. Lancaster

Mankind has always made too much of its saints and heroes, and how the latter handle the fuss might be called their final test. ~ Wilfrid Sheed

There is no more wild, free, vigorous growth of the forest, but everything is in pots or rows like a rococo garden ... The pupil is in the age of spontaneous variation which at no period of life is so great. He does not want a standardized, overpeptonized mental diet. It palls on his appetite. ~ G. Stanley Hall

We've been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it's your turn to stand up and stand out. ~ Seth Godin

The capacities that develop in the earliest years may be harder to measure on tests of kindergarten readiness than abilities like number and letter recognition, but they are precisely the skills, closely related to executive functions, that researchers have recently determined to be so valuable in kindergarten and beyond: the ability to focus on a single activity for an extended period, the ability to understand and follow directions, the ability to cope with disappointment and frustration, the ability to interact capably with other students. ~ Paul Tough

That said, ID does not qualify as science because it gives us nothing to test or measure. Science requires replicable tests involving measurable variables. ~ Tony Snow