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I’m Afraid to Put My Son Through a Standardized American Education

By Emily Meadows
25-Feb-17
I’m Afraid to Put My Son Through  a Standardized American Education


I gave birth this year, in Hong Kong. Nothing quite changes the way you see children and their education the way having one of your own does. While my husband and I wistfully imagine raising our baby alongside close friends and family in the U.S. (we’re both American), returning home after years abroad now gives us pause. What about the schools?
I have been a professional educator and counselor internationally for the past fourteen years. I’ve worked for American-style schools in France, Kuwait, and Hong Kong. These establishments are accredited by governing bodies such as the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, and students graduate with a U.S. high school diploma. Courses are taught in English, kids learn what a nickel and a dime and a quarter are, and sometimes we even get Thanksgiving off for holiday. While flavored by local context, these schools are American in both name and ethos. However, international schools rarely implement the same barrage of standardized tests that have come to be associated with U.S. public education.
American-style international schools tend to be privately governed and work with their stakeholders to establish the most appropriate use of standardized tests. Some administer the IOWA Test of Basic Skills every few years, as a metric to ensure achievement is on track. Many have bought into the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs, offering these exams each May so that high school students may earn college credit. Select children are referred for IQ tests or other psycho-educational evaluations to better understand their learning and performance. Our graduates usually plan to attend university in the States, so we cannot avoid college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT. Still, while international schools haven’t escaped standardized testing altogether, it is a relatively small element of our programs, compared to the way they are embedded in the academic agenda back home.
One need not live in the States to be privy to the ongoing discussion of how standardized testing holds schools hostage. Just open any news website to read stories of children racked by anxiety over these supposedly high-stakes exams. We, overseas, hear about considerable instructional time diverted from academic, artistic, and social-emotional content and devoted, instead, to teaching children how to fill in bubble sheets and then administering the filling out of said bubble sheets, by some counts well over one hundred times in a typical K-12 tenure. Teachers lament the impact this has on their (already modest) salaries, their pedagogy, their curriculum and, ultimately, their morale.
I understand the need to hold kids, faculty, and schools accountable. I get that we should not assume learning is happening just because students and educators are spending time in a classroom together. However, we cannot standardize the way we assess millions of children any more than we can standardize the way that we describe them. Children are unique little beings, and these tests are hurting them. They are hurting teachers, the very people who need to feel supported, invested, and enthusiastic about their careers in order to be present with my son. They are hurting schools by diverting resources, often from places that are seriously in need. And, most critically, this is happening without any apparent benefit; nobody seems to be learning more than they were before.
I recognize that I am fortunate to be a U.S. passport-holder. For this privilege we pay taxes on our overseas income, contributing in this way to the school district where we are registered voters, where we could potentially enroll our child one day. I want my son to know his aunts and uncles, his new cousin, his grandparents. I want him to experience climbing the Rockies, where my husband and I met, fell in love, and got married. But, I am afraid to bring my baby back to America.
Every child deserves to work with professional educators who can assess what they have learned in a personalized way. Every child has the right to spend their school day on activities that will encourage their development. Every child should have the chance to be valued as an individual, not as a test-taker that may attract (or inhibit) funding. My husband and I are lucky; we have the choice to stay in Hong Kong, to send our son to an American-style international school where he will have these opportunities.
Emily Meadows blogs for TIE.




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Comments

03/16/2017 - Ellie
Although you do not mention which of the American schools in Hong Kong you teach for, it might be HKIS. HKIS is one of the most elite schools in the entire world. It does work hard to succeed on the most important standarized, benchmarked tests for America-bound students, especially the SAT and AP. But it is an extra-ordinarily elite environment including (but not limited to) its own rugby pitch and its own marina...right on Hong Kong Island! As for Hong Kong itself, the non-wealthy/ordinary people are forced to put their children through literally one of the most high stakes testing environments ever created (the Hong Kong TSA at age 15 and the Hong Kong DSE at age 18). These tests make or break entire families as they can actually block individuals from attending Hong Kong universities and close schools. Many of the people who write education policy believe that high stakes testing in local schools gives Hong Kong its competitive edge....bringing the extreme wealth that supports Hong Kong Island's most elite schools, such as CIS and HKIS. The debenture alone (reservation spot) at these schools is well over 1 million HKD.