Standardized tests may pressure schools and teachers to emphasize reading and writing, but what then?

Standardized tests = standardized kids?

A thought for the week—

“What if our children and young people learn to read and write but don’t like to and don’t? What if they don’t read the newspapers and magazines, or can’t find beauty in a poem or love story? What if they don’t go as adults to artistic events, don’t listen to a broad range of music, aren’t optimistic about the world and their place in it, don’t notice the trees and the sunset, are indifferent to older citizens, don’t participate in politics or community life?

“Should any of this worry us?”

— The late Harvard education professor Vito Perrone Sr., a longtime opponent of standardized testing in education, who died on August 24, age 78.