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Texas Teen Worries Her Massachusetts Friend is Seen Just as a Number
My friend Anna is an honor student, a peace activist for peace in the Middle East, a mentor at a local elementary school, a member of her High School’s debate team, a student council member at her school, and in gifted and talented classes. Anna has failed the MCAS for the last two years--despite a battery of test preparation courses and after school MCAS tutoring. Some of the MCAS test prep has even cut into her time volunteering and even into her gifted and talented classes. Anna is a senior now in a Massachusetts Public School in Newton and she does not expect to pass MCAS this year.
A number cannot tell you that Anna mentors little children or that she wants to become a teacher--or that she wants to study Greek mythology in college. So why does our nation focus on just numbers? Is Anna, who obviously has a lot of moral and ethical worth, undeserving of a high school diploma based on one absurd test score? Hearing that the state of Massachusetts would ever even consider failing such a person of my friend Anna repulses me.
A number doesn't tell much about a person. But numbers are continually used and reused to tell our nation that “test scores are rising, schools are improving, students are learning,” a statement that Governor Rick Perry made in his campaign for Governor for the state of Texas.
Test scores are rising in the state of Texas, but they have come at a high price. The price of fairness, accuracy, and a quality education. Last year I dreaded lugging books, binders, and papers from classroom to classroom and sitting for half an hour in a lecture about TAAS and how important it was to my future-- spending seven hours my day in classrooms and going home having not accomplished anything.
Taking the test last spring I noticed that the test had questions on it like “what continent do you live on”, “what country do you live in”, and “what does the earth revolve around”. TAAS, as Texans learned the hard way, was a waste of time, money, and resources. I cannot get back that year of my education. But I refuse to let the same waste of my time happen again with TAKS. Why can’t our state learn from its mistake?
People that have read the article about my refusal to take theh TAKS in the newspaper or heard on the news or the radio have often asked me what are you fighting for. My answer is "A quality education"--one with no more frustration or anxiety, fear or scare tactics, bribery or trickery.
What is the sacrifice of depriving a diploma from a student like Anna to prove? I keep asking myself who would deny a person like Anna a diploma? Teachers at Anna’s school have already began a barrage of fear tactics, saying “you can’t get anywhere without a diploma” and “you can’t get into college without a diploma.” I've heard these same scare tactics from my criticizers and principal.
Homeschoolers don’t have a diploma and they still go to college. Many seniors apply for scholarships and college admission before they have a diploma. Who is saying that Anna and I, who have been schooled through the public education system, should not receive the same right?
If Anna fails MCAS she will be considered a “failure.” But what does one score tell people about Anna?
I will be a Texas state “dropout” based on my boycott and be considered a “failure” on the TAKS. But, by failing the TAKS what does that tell people about me? Does it mean that I am a failure as a human being?
A number will never tell you that a person is the next Jonas Salk, or if a person will participate in a democracy and vote, or if a person is an active member of their community or a mentor to other children.
The TAKS experiment will fail but will it really take more students like Anna and me that fail before both our states start to care? Will it really take forty-two thousand third grade students being held back before we reconsider our actions? Will we really have to see a dramatic increase in dropout rates? Do we really have to see classrooms and schools become overcrowded? Do Texans really have to look on in horror as we watch the demise of our public education system? I hope that we will learn from our mistakes before it is too late and at last realize that the “Texas miracle” was nothing more than a myth or figment of our imagination. A number that we all wanted to believe was true.
— Kimberly A. Marciniak
Texas teen who has announced her refusal to take the TAKS
essay turned in as "creative writing" assignment
Feb. 17, 2003
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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