Ideas can get lost in the forest in long posts. Here’s a short idea worth consideration. As far as testing goes, first you have to care. The problem with megatesting is sometimes students quit caring because all those fails hurt too much. Testing days actually are very easy for the teacher, but they are a trip in a leaky lifeboat for kids, especially young kids. After the first failure or two, a child may try to catch up, but I believe there comes a time when some kids decide the game is over, even if they still have another ten years to occupy various desks.

We can see this when we play board games. Certain kids with only a few Monopoly deeds will keep playing. Either they are O.K. with losing or they are hoping for some future miracle. Maybe the two kids with all the deeds will wipe each other out, for example. But a lot of kids simply quit. They may throw the dice in a desultory manner and keep moving around the board. They may pass monopoly money back and forth. Despite these gestures, though, they are mostly watching the TV in the background or talking to friends. They are no longer part of the game.

When we give too many tests where low scores are inevitable, I am certain we convince groups of students to check out of the learning game. Electronic distractions make this exit from learning easier than ever before. Why play if you cannot win?

If I was trying to figure out why so many kids are graduating from high school unable to complete a community college program for x-ray technicians, I’d scrutinize these inappropriate tests early on in my research process.