BEAUMONT, TEXAS A 13-year-old Vincent Middle School student, Alex Trevino was raised in a creative household even having artistic parents who own and operate a tattoo and piercing shop in town. She’s saying that creativity and individual thought are being blocked in the public schools.
She blames the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests for the stunted learning achievements in the Texas classrooms.
“I feel that we are not learning anything that we can use in life, we’re taught to a test, nothing comes out of it.”
The 8th grader is opting out of the required testing, but The Texas Education Agency rules state that refusing to take the STAAR is not a choice. The state demands that 5th and 8th graders complete and pass the STAAR test to be advanced to the next grade. If High school seniors fail to take and pass this test they will not be able to graduate. The Government run schools are always leaving kids behind by installing road blocks on individualism, while pushing collectivism as the standard. It’s purely about control and not furthering education, there is one test with one answer to each question. There are millions of students with different minds and learning levels, but with the ceiling lowered there is no room for progression. At this sputtering pace, the minds of our youth are fixed upon passing a test instead of relishing in the broad horizons of vast knowledge available outside the box. College Professor Dr. Deanna Robinson, Ph.D. Told Dontcomply.com this about standardized testing. “As an educator, I agree with the girl. Standardized testing has accelerated the lack of critical thinking skills for our students. MOST educators feel the same way. The problem is that politicians (not educators) dictate these tests. These politicians are mostly businessmen or attorneys familiar with business models of “measurable outcome”. Learning is difficult to quantify,, so they, (politicians) in their infinite wisdom decided standardized tests would provide a good, quantifiable, measure that they could use to measure learning.”
Alex’s parents are in full support of their daughter by stating that the testing is not an accurate assessment of a student’s knowledge. Her mother, Aubrey, strongly believes that the STAAR is really putting limits on learning. “We are having our kids do standardized testing, learn to a test all year long, all for nothing, years of education down the toilet. All to memorize something, to regurgitate it later on a test.”
She went on the say “I’m very proud of her for what she’s doing, absolutely will face consequences for whatever comes.”
Aubrey says that these mandatory STAAR tests are not about education at all, and solely about money, and it was the main reason for the allegations of corruption at the Beaumont Independent School District. Usually when the state has their hands in something their fingers become sticky and adhere to the just the money and nothing else.
The informative mother continued with “Salaries are connected to the STAAR testing, if children do better, they get a raise, if they do not, they don’t”
Her daughter is not giving in and has started a Facebook page called ‘STAAR SOS’ to recruit other families to stand up. Alex’s page took in 9,000 followers within the first 4 hours. The exposure of this state regulated testing by the students themselves is a break through for the indoctrinated government school system, this in itself is a refreshing and needs to be acknowledged. Alex’s parents should consider homeschool considering they have their own business it might be a perfect place to set up a classroom of their own. Freeing themselves from these educational restrictions could prove to be liberating. Breaking the shackles known as Common Core and Cscope will open up the world to the be absorbed, learning will be enhanced and individual free thought will thrive.
By Andre’ Gabriel Esparza – DontComply.com
