Most readers responding to an Argus-Courier online poll said they did not think that the current tesitng system in public schools is useful.
About 56.5 percent said the system is not useful, while 39 percent said it is. Here were some of the comments:
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“If we are talking about public school, then my opinion is the whole model has failed.”
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“I think it’s useful but also that there is too much emphasis placed on them. I don’t think the federal government should be involved.”
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“It never ceases to amaze me how illiterate the populous is, but they can sure text.”
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“The problem is not with testing in schools but with teaching curriculum focused on improving those test scores rather than teaching simply what needs to be taught.”
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“You have to have some measure of success, but I don’t like teachers teaching just for the test. Students need to learn how to think, reason and develop, not just memorize.”

“The current system of standardized online casino testing is shallow and biased towards kids with a certain type of skill in test taking and recall of disjointed facts. It unfairly punishes schools, districts and teachers.”
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“Teachers are beholden to these exams which amounts to no more than two months of crunching and “teaching to the test.” Students are not taught to retain this information, which is used exclusively to spit back data on basically how well students were able to perform during these outlier months. In the bigger picture, these tests and the scores do not represent what our kids are acutally learning and being taught.”