College Board to debut an 8th-grade PSAT exam

The test, expected to be released in 2010, aims to identify talented students and get them into college-prep classes early. But many critics say students already face too many tests and too much stress


By Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 8, 2008

education they deserve.

They're like a de facto national board of education dictating what we have to be cramming into students' heads in anticipation of round after round of standardized tests. And the rationale behind all this testing is too rarely questioned.

Besides, being in the 8th grade sucks bad enough without "putting on notice" about friggin' college.

In short, fuck the College Board and the deformed equine behemoth they rode in on.

I guess we will be testing kindergarteners before too long.

I don't know for sure, but I have always suspected that the tracking in other countries sc hewed the achievements scores against the US. The subset of College bound Europeans was competing with our full set of anyone still in high school.

What makes this country better than others is the freedom to make decisions. Look at it this way, some people don't mature enough early enough to score huge on tests that measure educational milestones. My brother, for instance, graduated about where McCain did; fifth from the bottom. Within five years he was an honor student at Ohio State and has completed his Masters, aced the CPA on the first try. He was able to come back after a troubled childhood and still make it to the top.

My question here is, how many kids will get tracked and then denied the possibility of redeeming themselves down the road.

To me, dangerous stuff.

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They're trying to make themselves recession-proof by coming up with more tests to "help" students.

Without tests, how could we ever tell which kids have curiosity, passion, purpose, love of learning and engaged minds? Without tests, all students are the same.