Taking tests,tests,tests is a student's way of life

By Greg Toppo
USA Today

Chris Evans plays Kyle, a high school senior who masterminds a plan to steal the answers to the SAT exam — and the key to his future — in "The Perfect Score," in theaters today. Associated Press

What, you were expecting a stash of cash in Vegas? Diamonds in Istanbul?

It may just be sheets of multiple-choice questions at SAT headquarters in Princeton, N.J., but the stakes couldn't be higher.

Popular culture is beginning to tap into a rich vein of fear among school kids as young as 9: performing poorly on standardized tests.

Increasingly, the lives of millions of children revolve around these tests, which can define who they are and what they learn. A single test can now decide whether they graduate from high school, advance to the next grade or attend a school judged "in need of improvement."

Forget killer sharks, evil emperors and chain-saw-wielding wackos. If you really want to scare the wits out of kids these days, make the bad guy a freshly sharpened No. 2 pencil.

"Tests loom large in children's lives because they loom large in educators' lives," says Anne Young, principal of Clark Elementary School in Franklin, Ind.

Kids have always suffered through tests. A bumper sticker jokes, "As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in school."

In recent years, tests have multiplied as school districts try to make schools and students more accountable. When they make it to high school, this generation of students faces graduation exams their parents never imagined.

More students are applying to college, making admission more competitive. As admissions officers sort out the academic high-achievers from the rest, they rely more than ever on one test: the SAT.

Testing has simply become part of kid culture, says Gary Phillips, former deputy commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. "They talk a lot about tests, think a lot about tests."

On television, Fox's "Boston Public" frequently dwells on Massachusetts' tough high school exit exam; another Fox TV hit, "That '70s Show," features a main character who did poorly on his college entrance exams.

In a recent episode of WB's sitcom "Like Family," one character wants to blow off his PSATs. A recent episode of WB's hit drama "Everwood" features college recruiters telling students that every test affects their futures.

Even British wizards in training aren't immune. In last summer's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," Harry, in his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, sweats over his Ordinary Wizarding Level, or O.W.L. exams, his first standardized test.

As if getting into college weren't stressful enough, President Bush's No Child Left Behind education reform law in 2002 increased testing exponentially for younger students, requiring public schools to give annual math and reading tests as early as third grade.

"It's what they're coming to expect from school," says best-selling children's author Andrew Clements. His new book, "The Report Card," which arrives in April, deals with the fallout from standardized testing in elementary school. Clements' hero, a genius fifth-grader named Nora, secretly studies at MIT and sees soccer games as physics problems. She intentionally earns Ds on her report card to make a point about intelligence, grades and testing.

In previous books, Clements has tackled teacher burnout, censorship and racism. A former teacher, Clements says he wrote "The Report Card" to discuss the issue, not to slam standardized tests.

"I'm not suggesting that these things should go away," he says. "They just need to be put in proper perspective."

A few of his characters speak their minds. Nora complains that tests and grades change everything:

"The smart kids feel smarter and better and get all stuck up, and the regular kids feel stupid and like there's no way to ever catch up. And the people who are supposed to help kids, the parents and the teachers, they don't. They just keep making up more tests."

A school librarian confesses being upset that she has to hand out grades in library skills; Nora's mother, who sells real estate, admits that poor test scores drive down home prices.

Phillips likens testing to a thermometer: "It doesn't tell you everything about the student; it just gives you a check.

"Testing is sort of here to stay. Most policy-makers feel that without it, you're flying without radar."

But the approach has inspired a backlash.

"The test culture is pervasive in public schools," says Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, or FairTest. Schaeffer says students take 36 to 60 standardized tests in their K-12 career.

"It becomes the dominant factor in the public school experience."

A few critics have even taken to calling the testing advocates "standardistas."

Most states don't penalize younger children who do poorly on standardized tests, but when scores don't improve for virtually all students, No Child Left Behind requires that schools offer free tutoring or transfers.

Tests always have carried high stakes for kids. But David Berliner, an education professor at Arizona State University, says: "What's heightened now is the repercussions for not doing well. That puts a layer of stress they haven't quite had before."

In 19 states, students who don't pass a high school exit exam are denied a diploma.

In 2000, an error by National Computer Systems (NCS) on Minnesota's exit exam resulted in nearly 8,000 high school students mistakenly failing the math portion. In November 2002, students settled a lawsuit against NCS, which agreed to pay families up to $7 million. A few high school seniors received as much as $16,000 apiece after they sought counseling, were excluded from graduation ceremonies and athletics or were forced to get tutoring because of "failing" scores.

For those who want to go to college, the SAT has become more important than ever, says Justin Kestler of Sparknotes.com, which publishes online study guides. "The SAT is like death and taxes for teenagers — this rite of passage and, in some ways, an impediment to adult life."

Colleges now rely less on grade-point averages, seeing them as an unreliable measure, says Seppy Basili, a vice president at Kaplan, the test prep company.

Also, Basili says, by the time you're a high school junior or senior, the SAT is "your only lever" to improve your chances of getting into a good college.

Students spend months and sometimes thousands of dollars studying and purchasing books and courses to improve their scores, spawning a multimillion-dollar test-prep industry. Kaplan recently became the most profitable division of its parent, The Washington Post Co.

Krystyna Karmol, a senior at Cranford, N.J., High School, didn't fret about her SAT scores — until she visited colleges and learned that her scores were a bit low for the schools she wanted to attend.

"That's really when the stress started building up," she says.

"I took classes, I went online, I even got books."

In "The Perfect Score," which stars Erika Christensen and Scarlett Johansson, no matter how much the leads prepare, they can't seem to get the score they need.

"Basically, the test is standing in the way of what they want to do and who they want to be," says director Brian Robbins. "Ultimately, who they really are has nothing to do with their score on the test, and who they might become has nothing to do with how they might score on the test.

"But unfortunately, they have to get through that roadblock."