Kinder Torture

The Springs School Board is deliberating whether kindergarten and first-grade students should be asked to sit for three hours a day for an entire week filling in little boxes on standardized tests with number-two pencils. Seems like a no-brainer to us.

As anyone who has had or been around 5 and 6-year-olds knows, they don't take kindly to sitting still for half an hour, let alone three hours - except, perhaps, in front of a really good video. How much faith can school officials put in standardized test results from kids who are no doubt squirming to be set free? It's no wonder parents and teachers report that the kids have upset stomachs and are anxiety-ridden during test week.

Let's let kids be kids. They'll have years of standardized tests ahead of them. If the district absolutely feels the need for some form of scholastic assessment at that young age, it should consider alternatives used in other schools that are less rigid and more reflective of the students' overall capabilities, such as verbal evaluations by their teachers and "portfolios" with samples of the children's work.

If the district is deadset on going ahead with the tests for this year, however, it should, at the least, allow parents to exempt their children from the testing and offer an alternate activity for them during test time.