New standardized test does not produce enough student tears
Written by Jonah Librande, Former Student on Sunday, November 22, 2015
This article is a satirical piece written by guest columnist Jonah Librande.
After a recent session, Washington State’s legislature announced plans to replace whatever the current standardized test is with one guaranteed to produce several additional eons worth of suffering.
The new test is based off of the prototype tested at SHS during the previous academic year, the “Sadistic Befoulment of the American Curriculum," or more commonly known as the SBAC. This test, however, was deemed to be too easy for most students. An employee of the state noted that it did not induce nearly enough crying to sate the hunger for suffering of either of the parties, and expressed embarrassment that partisan bickering delayed these much needed reforms for this long.
SHS staff spent most of the days following the announcement altering their lesson plans to give at least two or three of their students a chance of passing the tests. The math department was unavailable for comment, as they were all trying to make a lesson plan that could, theoretically, teach a savant tenth dimensional calculus by early May.
“I just want to teach kids words and stuff,” said SHS English and journalism teacher Jennifer English from a puddle of her own tears. “I had a real cool curriculum, and we were going to learn about how to persuade people, like that one guy from that one movie, Thank You for Smoking. Man, that was a cool movie. Now, we have to figure out what the stupid test even wants us to teach. The name of it is a fifty-seven letter long acronym, and I couldn’t even make it through the two hour training video on how to pronounce it. I’m just gonna tell my kids to write ‘the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell’ over and over again and hope that works.”
English has since moved to Canada, where “no evil can find [her]”.
“I really don’t see the big issue here,” said the infernal essence of the foul test itself after being brought to this mortal plane by a summoning ritual graciously performed by Arrowhead staff Ghostbusters. “Sometimes, you have to make some sacrifices to win some victories. College students sacrifice their time for good grades. The Mayans sacrificed the innocent for rain. Same deal here.”
When prompted to elaborate, the essence stressed the importance of sacrifice.
“Look, you think higher education works because of compassion for the betterment of students or some garbage? No! You have to offer up some bright, fresh, promising, delectable students on the altar of education every once in a while. It keeps the fell magics of student instruction moving.”
The essence was banished after it began ranting about how it will inevitably devour “all that is sacred," stated that it was a necessary sacrifice, like in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery," and hinted that examinees might want to give that particular story a once over before test time.
