Deviation of Tests

Recently I watched John Oliver's take on standardized testing (if you'd like to you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k) and I had my own feelings about it as well. My life has been a standard deviation of tests. I was born in 1992 and by the time I was nine in 2001 Bush initiated the No Child Left Behind Act and I began to see an increase in tests at school. I went through many tests when I was younger and the tests only built. In the 3rd grade when we were taught to write cursive I was constantly badgered for my bad hand writing and the inability to fill in the bubbles on tests correctly, they were not dark enough. Then in the fifth grade they tested me and figured out I had Dysgraphia, which not only causes the tremors in my hands, but also my bad hand writing. With the new diagnosis and poor CSAP (Colorado Model Content Standards) scores I was placed in Special Ed Class a sweltering white trailer on the asphalt outside of the Middle School. Special ED was a strange place for the school to put those of us who didn't test well or didn't know how to test. In Special Ed we were faced with even more tests to improve our reading scores. We were given the SRA (Student Reading Assessment) a test, that seemed it was made for a third grader rather than a 6^th grader. I got out of Special Ed, but was still required to go through SRA classes every single year in Middle School. By the seventh grade tests showed I was writing at a 9th grade level, but I was testing at a 5th grade level for math. At the end of the Eighth grade right before summer came I was tested and diagnosed with a form of High Functioning Autism known as Asperger Syndrome. 

When I got of High School I hoped that there would be an end to testing, but there was only more. Teachers took time away from their teaching to teach us how to test. We continued with CSAP and on top of that we had additional math and writing tests every semester to see if we improved. By senior year I was all too familiar with testing, but we began to prepare for a new kind of test, the ultimate test, ACT. We were taught to speed through the test, yet take our time, an oxymoron unto itself. We were taught to speed read in order to get all our answers down. When the time came to take the test we were made to think we were skillfully prepared. The added pressure of time only added to the stress of taking the test. I scored low on the ACT not enough to skip the Accuplacer required to get into Front Range Community College. I wondered if would be able to get out of the Accuplacer because of my autism, but I learned a hard unwavering truth: When you become an adult with autism there is no more help from school for you. The only help given is extra time on tests and the possibility of using a laptop in class to take notes. I took the Accuplacer test and placed into an intermediate class for English, but I failed to place in Math meaning I would have to pay to take the Accuplacer again so that I could get into an intermediate Math class and Math class in the same semester. Though there have been egregious tests I have learned to excel in spite of them. I am member of Phi Theta Kappa and an honor student. So what has testing taught me? Testing has taught me two things: 

1. It is a select skill that all too few students have acquired

2. I am not good at taking tests.

What does this mean? America has taught its students to test and to test well. If you can test well, maybe you can go to college. If you test well maybe you can get your degree. If you test well you can get another advanced degree. If you get a degree maybe you can get a job even though you don't require the job experience for it. Once you get out in the real world it’s the set of skills you've been given and not the exactness of how you've taken a test. Do you see the problem? The problem is always maybe there is no definite yes. Why should college hinge on a single test that if you fail you are barred from your degree until you succeed? Shouldn't college be opened to all those who want to strive to achieve? Shouldn't college be a place not of privilege and eventual poverty, but of a place promise and hopes for a brighter future?