Marion Brady, retired educator, writes here about a mother who is certain that her son–then in third grade–attempted to kill himself after failing the Florida state tests by one point, twice. After he failed the second time, she knew he was morose. She called him for dinner, and he didn’t answer. She knocked on his door: no response
Nose. She pushed in and found him hanging by a belt, blue in the face. A third grader.
In a personal note, Marion told me that the article garnered many hostile comments when it was published at alternative.com. Readers simply refused to believe the story was true.
Brady writes:
“If failing to reach the pass-fail cut score by just one point wasn’t within every standardized test’s margin of error; if research hadn’t established that for the young, retention in grade is as traumatic as fear of going blind or of a parent dying; if standardized tests provided timely, useful feedback that helped teachers decide what to do next; if billions of dollars that America’s chronically underfunded public schools need weren’t being diverted to the standardized testing industry and charter promotion; if a generation of test-and-punish schooling had moved the performance needle even a little; if today’s sneaky, corporately driven education “reform” effort wasn’t driven by blind faith in market ideology and an attempt to privatize public schooling; if test manufacturers didn’t publish guidelines for dealing with vomiting, pants-wetting and other evidences of test-taker trauma; if the Finns hadn’t demonstrated conclusively that fear-free schools, cooperation rather than competition, free play, a recess every hour in elementary school, and that letting educators alone could produce world-class test-takers—if, if, if—then I might cut business leaders and politicians responsible for the America’s current education train wreck a little slack.
“But all of the above are demonstrably true. And yet we keep subjecting children to the same dangerous nonsense, year after year.”
A few years back, I spoke at the national convention of school psychologists. I listened as the president of the association spoke. He said that the three greatest fears of children are:
1) the death of a parent;
2) going blind;
3) failing a grade and being left behind.
Marion Brady is right. The testing regime is insane. It is child abuse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wrote about this topic on one of my blogs in: Do High Stakes Tests Cause Children to Commit Suicide to Escape the Stress
The evidence says yes.
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Horrible, horrible, horrible.
The one end of the spectrum that could be considered too lenient or even coddling can invite slack behavior and even corruption in institutions and individuals. It’s indirect though.
The opposite end that tends toward no excuses and hard edges (and knocks), directly stresses and abuses, and invites abusive behavior and corruption in institutions and individuals.
There is no excuse for erring on the side of abuse and the destruction of people, as direct consequences!
Our society must take the blame and the responsibility to change.
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I cried when I read the story about this child who thought his life was not worth living if he didn’t pass a test that has no real meaning.
Not all children attempt suicide but many give up and commit suicide internally by no longer believing in their self worth.
In the school in which I taught, we had grades pre-k – 8. Everyone had a set a goal at the beginning of the year. This is a grand intention. The middle school students posted their essays outside their rooms. Reading them gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. In NYC one is a Level 1 (the worse) to Level 4 ( the best) whatever that means. The majority of children wrote as their goal that they wanted to be a Level 4; not I want to be curious and find out more about the world, I want to be better at fly fishing, I want to learn how to cook healthy foods. Instead they wanted to be some arbitrary number that has no meaning at all.
This is the result of these high stakes testing.
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If you’ve ever proctored a test and seen a student meltdown when they found themselves floundering, especially those who are usually confident in their abilities, then you know this could easily happen, even with a child as young as eight or nine.
My grandson who is entering first grade has started to hit himself in the face when he runs into difficulty with his school work. Once he calms down he can complete the assignment, but he is learning destructive habits instead of sane coping skills.
That’s what happens with a One Size Fits All Education.
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I agree. Too much stress and testing has negative consequences, particularly for students that struggle or feel they don’t “measure up.” I have seen the crest fallen faces and the tears of my ELLs trapped in the unfair demands of testing.
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Not just ELL’s or kids with learning disabilities, even gifted students get discouraged. I remember giving the 8th grade math assessment (pre common core) which (for a surprise) had quite a bit of algebra, a unit which they hadn’t covered yet. The poor boy was sobbing his eyes out, feeling stupid for not intuitively knowing how to solve what, in my day, was nineth grade math.
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The comments to the article are shocking and disgusting. This mother is absolutely telling the truth. She is very generous to share her story.
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Absolutely agree. I can’t believe SO many adults are SO ignorant. The standardized testing people put this veneer of validity and respectability of these tests that covers rotted material underneath.
Not only should legislators take these awful tests and publish their scores, but parents should take them as well. We don’t have to publish parents’ scores, but maybe they would get the idea that these tests are NOT the standardized tests we took in school (never mind the high stakes nature that we didn’t have).
And the mother has gone into the article to share her story again and again to the commenting idiots. That’s true courage right there.
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A few years back, a popular and successful local high school athlete tweeted about his despair at not achieving a passing score on a standardized test after having taken it once. He was apprehensive about finding out whether or not he passed the second time. After he learned that he failed again, he came home from school and shot himself on the head. His girlfriend followed him home after reading his desperate tweets only to hear the gunshot as she entered the house.
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And the government, who is supposed to protect children from abuse, is inflicting the abuse. Makes me livid.
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This harkens to discussions about east Asian countries and their standardized test regime, as described by Yong Zhao.
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An alarming increase in suicides within the United States is reported here and widely on the web. There are few reported deaths for children under the age of 10. There seems to be some consensus that young children who commit suicide may not be capable of grasping the finality of death.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db241.htm
Here is a report on the situation in Japan, tracking suicides in relation to the school year and the multiple pressures on kids there, not just bullying but also the competitive pressures attached to tests. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34105044
Meanwhile Secretary of Education John King has an EdWeek Commentary (August 3, 2015) about failures in education and the rising rate of youth incarceration. He wants schools to issue fewer suspensions, reduce absentee rates, increase high school graduation rates, and reengaging students in school by investing in computer labs, materials, and…school counselors.
His commentary says that “1.6 million students attend schools that employ a sworn police officer but do not have a counselor on staff.”
Why?
According to King this is a “prime example” of misplaced priorities. Solution: Reallocate funds at the local level. Problem is a lack of commitment and insufficient investment in our teachers and students.
No mention of for-profit prisons as one of the reasons why, “Over the past three decades, state and local expenditures for prisons and jails grew more than twice as fast as spending on public elementary and secondary education.”
For an amazing source of more information on for-profit prisons, see https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/aug/4/private-corporations-rake-cash-doj-and-bop/
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Parents are too busy to work for a family survival in an society where the rich is getting richer and the poor is getting poorer.
Confucius has said that the economy is the basic morality.
All business tycoons, who are like Donald Trump, support PAC which is their tools to corrupt legal system and to create all Bills and Laws to allow HB1 visa workers, to outsource American jobs and to have RICH foreigners from Saudi Arabia, Russia and China taking over all ESSENTIAL Public Services in communication, in education, in transportation, in hospital, in prison and in commodities like oil, electricity and water…
This will yield our young generation to grow up with confusion and despair.
People ONLY have power whenever people can UNITE and can be cultivated in the same level of awareness about democracy with responsibility.
This basic democracy needs to be in mutual understanding of the common good that is beyond many different personal interests. There are many talented and talent-less people who are just like Lago in Shakespeare play. For now, Paul Manafort is being discovered to be Lago in Trump’s campaign.
In short, only when a whole child education concept is well supported, children are safely at home and at school and teachers are respected with tenure and their credentials, we will have the best education system where children love to learn and teachers enlighten to teach. As a result, we will have less citizens who behave like Trump and the like with no shame, no conscience and no being considerate for the common good. Back2basic
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Sorry, it should read “fewer” citizens. May
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If you did not see the Peanuts movie that was released last year, please do so. Charlie Brown is not only stressed about the ‘little red-head girl,’ but he is also obsessed with PASSING HIS STANDARDIZED TESTS. I looked around the theatre everytime he mentioned it hoping to find a like-minded mom or dad, but I guess no other parent thought this was inappropriate and disgusting.
Also, one of the reasons I opted my fourth grader out of testing is because I do believe it is a form of abuse. Think about it. The only people who do things to children- then tell them they can’t tell anyone else about it- are child abusers.
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Read this terrific letter, signed by Illinois superintendents to State Superintendent Tony Smith. http://www.winnetkacurrent.com/letters-editor/letter-editor-superintendents-thank-state-parcc-decision
They hot the nail on the head–ALL superintendents should write such a letter to their state supers/school boards, & ask for–no–demand a meeting, with resolution…in favor of the students & their education (& NOT testing).
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It is well documented that the Japanese suicide rate is connected to the rigors of growing up there, the hazing, the testing, the honor thing. We all know that, inspite of all this pressure, Japan’s economy has been mired in a slump for a long time. I guess harsh school policies do not translate into good economies. Indeed, we are rocking along much better with all our poorly educated folks.
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I, initially, thought, that the profit-making scheme of, schools-in-a- box (standards/ curriculum/testing/data analytics, was the goal of ed reform.
But, the purpose is two-fold. Testing is conditioning for feudalism- destroy desire to learn- repeated experiences of failure- control through punishment, etc.
Bill Gates, the Walton’s and the rest of the richest 0.1%, know that they have concentrated wealth to the point that economic opportunity is over.
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The news in New Jersey today: Passing PARCC is required for high school graduation for 2021.
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New Jersey is one the last states to keep PARCC.
NJ parents should opt out.
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From the NYT article:
“Beginning in 2021, in order to graduate, students will have to pass the Algebra 1 exam and the 10th-grade English exam given as part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARRC, tests. This year, just 44 percent of students statewide passed that English exam and 41 percent passed Algebra 1.”
“It gives you a great measure of college and career readiness.”said Mark W. Biedron, president of the board.”
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What will they do with the 50-60% of students who never pass the tests?
There is always the school to prison pipeline.
Maybe for-profit prison corps bought this one
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When did high school become college prep?
A high school diploma should be just that – not an entrance pass into college.
And just a little note:
The Buffalo Public Schools is desperate for CTE teachers, ones who can teach the basic trades. They are willing to hire individuals with and Associates Degree and two years experience, or simply people with four years experience. They’ll be given Buffalo Certification. (Check out the District Web Site)
If college isn’t always the answer, why are we penalizing students who aren’t proficient in all the subject areas?
Pretty soon everyone will have to hire students without high school diplomas – especially since less than half of the student population will be graduating.
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So they decide to require a HS graduation test that 6 out of 10 students cannot pass. Better keep up your portfolio kids!
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I’m bemused that N.J., stands nearly alone, in wanting to proclaim to businesses nationwide that a substantial portion of the N.J., prospective, employee base, can’t pass, the Aspen Institute’s muster, (a group that self-appointed to develop the performance threshold, with David Koch on the board until a few weeks ago).
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This is sad, but true. The pressure that the students are under is enormous.
I had worked for both a charter elementary school and a charter high school in Philadelphia which was owned by two separate companies serving two separate communities. I am a special education teacher. Testing was the priority at both schools. Everything taught was in preparation for the standardized tests. At the high school, weekly testing was done in all subject areas. 60% of my time was testing. Little time was left for real instruction. In the elementary school, during the weeks of standardized testing, I had to babysit all the students in special education who had alternate testing and had a very large group, K-8 in one small room with no aid during this time. So these students lost 2-3 weeks of instruction time. I complained loudly to say the least.
Education is no longer student-centered but test-centered. We are graduating students who can’t read, write, do simple math or problem solve, but they know how to behave during tests. It’s a sad commentary of our educational system, and what happens when corporations run schools.
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It’s too bad that readers of Marion Brady’s article “simply refused to believe the story was true,” primarily because it exposes yet another strata of ignorance about the impact these tests can have upon children’s life. Did anyone not notice, a couple of years ago, the rash of suicides at NYU? At the time many experts noted the pressure under which college students currently labor, and attributed the events at NYU to it.
I began my career working with adolescents in a locked unit at one of New England’s “Ivy League” psychiatric hospitals. There I saw a great many suicidal teens, and no small portion of them arrived at that state because they were anxious and depressed about their school performance–not to mention fearful of disappointing their parents.
That said, I understand that anecdotes are not necessarily credible evidence. So, I would say to those who doubt that the pressure of school leads to self-destructive acts: try using a couple of simple search terms–say ‘test taking in school and suicidality” or “suicidality and school” (this yields 74 results on ERIC, and “suicidality and testing” fetches 12 scholarly articles)–on Google to help them understand that their ignorance of this problem–like so many problems in education–does not mean that it does not exist.
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Unfortunately, those that should be protecting the children while at school, the teachers and administrators are the ones who allow this standards and testing monster to continue. GAGAGG* all of them and they are sending children to not only their mental deaths, but now physical deaths. Yes, there is a holocaust of children’s minds going on and all educators (sic) who Go Along to Get Along share some of the primary blame.
Wake up you ignorant selfish educators, open your eyes to the destruction you are causing by Going Along to Get Along. Just doing what you’ve been told to do is ethically wrong. And you can correct that ethical mistake by vowing and not going along with the testing malpractice madness.
“Oh, but I need the job, my family needs the income.” Tough shit, do what is right and go from there. Your personal expediency cannot trump justice, for if it does, well, hope that what goes around doesn’t come around to bite you:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
*GAGAGG = Go Along to Get Along Good Germans.
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The problem is not that students being “left behind” and having to repeat a grade; it is that the decision is no longer being made by a professional educator — the classroom teacher — over a year’s time but rather by performance on one (usually highly flawed) test given on one day (or week, or however much time is wasted on the standardized test).
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I haven’t read the book yet, but I listened to some of the recent NPR interview with the author of “The Idiot Brain” by Dean Burnett, a British neuroscientist.
From what I understood, our brain is not designed to do well on tests like these.
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/02/488238350/a-neuroscientist-explores-the-illogical-behaviors-of-the-mind-in-idiot-brain
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Interesting, Lloyd– I will have to check it out!
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I never imagined that someone, no one or anyone would not believe my son’s story. It never crossed my mind. If the story was indeed a fallacy, I would live everyday of the rest of my life in fear of karma. To be precise, in my mind, I would be granting a death wish for my son if I made up such a tall tale. Why would any parent make up such a story?
Wait a moment, let me clarify, I did know that people would not believe me. It was mostly friends and family who could not believe what happened. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe me it was that they could not, would not believe that my happy, freckled face nine year old son would attempt such a solution. They knew my son, they watched him grow up and they knew he was as normal and equivalent as any of their children. They did not believe me, they heard my words, saw what was happening to me as the parent and they did not want to believe me. They could not grasp the fact that my son wanted to end his life and attempted to do so. In their minds they believed me but in their hearts there was no room for so much pain my family was going through.
For others who did not believe me it was simply because there was no way possible for a nine year old to be so distraught, so devastated and so damaged that he wanted to die. They could not believe that a child could feel so worthless. They did not believe me.
My son came to me and asked if I thought that any parent or teacher could benefit from knowing his story. He asked me if I thought his story could save a life because people would know what happened to him. I just looked at him. I gazed into his eyes. I hate it! I hate looking deep into his eyes because way down deep I can still see his pain and the belt around his neck that dreadful day. I was lost for a few moments, I was without words. He just shook his head to get me to come from the trance I was in. Without hesitation, I said yes. I said it was very personally and his friends may find out and people may critize him by saying mean things to him. He was quiet. He asked me again if I thought his story would help at least one child, this time I nodded and he said “do it”. He had just given me his permission to tell his story. Hell, if anyone did not want to believe it, it would be me. I truly wished it was a nightmare or a big fat lie. I would gladly accept any punishment for conjuring up such a story. Ideally, that would have been way easier and I less broken and my son would be “intact”.
I now know why people do not believe me. It is because they, themselves can’t believe “it”, not me. Until people truly start to realize what is happening to our children with the high stakes consequentional testing and mandatory retention, nothing will change. People need to accept that just because they cannot believe something or that they don’t want to believe something that that doesn’t make it not true.
Marion Brady believed me. I know that he felt my pain and understood my son’s despair. He knew that my son’s story would help, would bring these issues to the forefront. He devoted his time and skill to put our story out there to make people believe it, believe me. He knew what he had to do. I hate retelling the story. It makes it seem fresh and new all over again with the exception that my son wants to help other children. Now I tell his story and it has made me feel hopeful that it can help others. It has made a terrible memory a facilitator of reform.
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Too many children are being bullied by teachers and administration in corporate charter schools like KIPP and Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies in New York City.
Bullying and Suicide
There is a strong link between bullying and suicide, as suggested by recent bullying-related suicides in the US and other countries. Parents, teachers, and students learn the dangers of bullying and help students who may be at risk of committing suicide.”
>>>>Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University
>>>>A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying
Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including physical bullying, emotional bullying, cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive or nude photos or messages about a person.
http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html
How is this not emotional bullying?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzWicLyDTkw
But what happens when the corporate charter school teachers are the bullies and they have been trained to be bullies by their corporate leaders and are forced to be bullies by their administrators or face losing their jobs? Who helps the children then?
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Mr Lofthouse, it is essentially bullying, I concur with your statements. Most teachers do not agree with the testing. There has been a few teacher suicides directly from being forced to inflict such demise on their students. Teachers are retiring early, some quitting their jobs and some leaving the profession entirely based on the testing. Most teachers feel that they have been put into a duress situation because they need their job, they need the income to support their families. This is where districts have a leg up on the situation to be able to enforce the teachers to comply with the standards and administer the tests, contracts. Many school districts now have created contracts with the teachers being only for one year at a time. That puts another enormous factor on the desk.
As far as holding someone legally responsible for the bullying is very difficult to sustain but it can be done. There should be lawsuits against districts and states for knowingly enforcing our educators to do as commanded which equates to bullying. There can be punitive damages and criminal convictions. However, the threshold dictates the difficulty of such to be proven in court.
I believe that the teachers must be forced into action or lack thereof by both sides as a way to make them pick a side if you will. Teachers by law are required to report any allegation of child abuse. It’s irrelevant if that abuse is mental or physical, it just needs to be abuse. Teachers are well aware of the affects that all the testing and retention has had upon themselves and their peers. With that said, they are even more aware of the damage that this is causing emotionally to their students. Students are developing very high stress levels, anxiety is becoming more and more prevalent. Students are not sleeping, not eating, socially withdrawing and students now have ailments that are creating significant physical and medical issues and diagnosis.
What would happen if teachers were to be held accountable for facilitating the abuse by continuing to administer the tests to their students? Could teachers face civil and criminal liability for “going along” with the demands of the states and districts? It’s not like it cannot be proven that this is being done intentionally. But remember teachers are under duress to comply or face the possibility of losing their jobs. But all this is intentional infliction of mental and physical abuse that is detrimental to every child.
I wonder if the teachers would refuse to comply and risk losing their jobs if they were to face child abuse charges themselves. It would be a sure way to fire back at the government and level the playing field. If teachers want the support of the students, parents and communities then teachers need to do what is best for their students and refuse to comply because that would deter any possible legal consequences. Besides, do you think that every district would fire every teacher who refuses to administer the test? Absolutely not! We, our children, are guaranteed to have a free education provided to them and it is protected under the law. If all the teachers were fired the states could face legal consequences for not providing the education because of the lack of educators.
All the teachers cannot get fired but all the teachers can refuse to comply and not administer the tests. Teachers can stand united with the parents and students and the government cannot do much about it. Our Constitution protects the students by providing an education and the Constitution enforces this right of an education.
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What teachers must learn is that the only thing to fear is fear itself. FDR said that in his first inaugural address.
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Julie – I believe you as a teacher, a parent, and a grandparent, I know this could (and does) happen. You and your son are very brave to share this story. Please remind your son that there is life outside of school. Nobody will be looking at his permanent record card and judging him as an adult. He is not defined by a test score – he is defined by his character.
My son has learning disabilities and was held back in second grade. The special education class would have lumped him in with emotionally disturbed children and he would not have survived the chaos. While we got him through eighth grade (with the help of a fantastic resource teacher who was able to get his reading level up to the 6th grade), high school was a disaster. We pulled him out of school before his eighteenth birthday and put him into a GED program. With his GED diploma he began a career as a dish washer, then a line cook, then a chef and part time manager – but life happens. His long time girl friend dumped him, management at the restaurant changed so he lost his job, and then he went into a deep depression for over a year where he wouldn’t leave his room. He currently has a job he hates and still suffers from anxiety and depression, especially after girlfriend number two dumped him. I’m often afraid he, too, will attempt to kill himself, especially when he tells me he wishes he were dead.
Where is my precious happy boy who I so dearly love? What happened to that sweet happy child?
Let your son know he is not alone. There are others who have suffered due to the rigidity of the school systems which care more about the numbers than the person.
I have never met your son, but I can tell he is a fine person with the world ahead of him. Remind him that there are people out there rooting for him to find peace and discover his passions in life. May he find that special talent and/or interest which makes him happy (my son is an excellent golfer and with a different temperament could have gone pro – he does, however, find pleasure with frisbee golf as well as playing international tournaments of some obscure online video game.) whether it be music, art, sports, literature, gaming, or another pursuit.
Give him an extra hug and tell him there are people who care and are rooting for him to find himself amidst the garbage that life sends his way. As I said, he is not alone.
Ellen T Klock
Buffalo, New York
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