One teen’s standardized testing horror story (and where it will lead)

[Sekhmets Daughter]

149. Whatever....

The simple fact that, by his own admission, he did poorly (poor, to quote him) in AP English as taught in his high school, is indication that he is going to have trouble in college in those courses which require writing essays and research papers. He's a journalism major, not an engineering major for Pete's sake.

Look, I totally agree that 'teaching to the test', grades 1 - 11 is a major mistake. However, by 12th grade students who want to go on to college benefit from classes that teach them how to take the SAT/ACT tests. They will be competing with students whose parents can spend thousand of dollars for private tutoring. Furthermore, why is everyone assuming that because students were asked to write essays that answered a particular question about a particular reading assignment, there was no critical thinking involved? That's sheer nonsense. He did poorly, because he writes poorly. The idea really came about last year with a conversation I had with my French teacher, but the root of it starts a little bit earlier. Are you really going to tell me this is a well constructed sentence? Or this:
It was the only class I’ve ever taken where the lessons I learned will carry with me for the rest of my life and after completion I felt ten times smarter.

I've raised 3 children, put all 3 through college and I've heard every excuse imaginable. This smells of being another.