Promoting-good-test-taking? No I call it Child Abuse

This article was taken from Jonathoan Pelto's blog, Wait Watch

Abbreviated Story 

The story is a shocking one and it has been fully confirmed by parents, teachers and even administrators at this elementary school.

As a result of the growing pressure to get CMT test scores up, like many schools, this elementary school has developed an official policy “to establish a positive CMT test-taking environment.”

The policy includes the following elements;

Several weeks prior to testing, classes decorate their doors with posters that include encouraging comments about the CMT test.

“CMT = Celebrating My Talents” posters are displayed around the school.

Kindergarten through 2nd grade students are recruited to send supportive messages to the older children.

Just prior to testing week, a CMT Rally is held that includes “uplifting songs,” skits and activities. (Note: This doesn’t count toward the world history curriculum requirement that children learn about China during the Cultural Revolution).

Apparently these steps weren’t producing sufficient improvements, so as one school administrator explained in a recent email, “there were concerns expressed by test proctors that some students were not fully engaged while taking the test - carelessly just bubbling in any answer, rushing through the tests, not going back over the test, etc.”

To address this problem, the school’s administration decided to institute a “CMT Carnival.”


“Students needed to earn the ability to participate in the Carnival at the end of testing by demonstrating good effort during the test. After each test, proctors gave feedback regarding students’ stamina and effort. Parent contact, private conversations with students, and consultations were held for and with students to bolster students, who showed any difficulty or frustrations during testing.”

So how did the system play out this year?

Here is a first-hand report from one of the administrators…


“The day of the CMT celebration I gave Mrs. XXXXXX a list of students…. who were not going to be able to participate and who needed to be picked up in the cafeteria after lunch and then escorted to the assigned classrooms. Once all students were outside, I saw [child #1] with a popcorn bag in her hands and standing in the cotton candy line. I asked her to come with me. We moved far away from the line and I asked her if she heard Mrs. XXXXXX calling her name. She said no. I asked [child #1] if she remembered that she was not supposed to participate in the CMT celebration. She said yes.”

As it turns out, in this case Child #1 is an excellent student displaying gifted skills in certain subjects. However anxiety about the Connecticut Mastery Tests led to severe headaches and other anxious behaviors. In order to support and protect their child, the parents decided to keep her out of the remaining CMT testing this year. Here failure to complete the two weeks of CMT testing earned her a spot on the dreaded – no CMT Carnival list.

Along with the other students, Child #1 spent the day of the CMT Carnival in an assigned classroom.

Apparently the belief in this school, and probably others, is that by humiliating these students, segregating them from their fellow classmates and preventing them from having popcorn and cotton candy will provide them with a powerful incentive to forgo their anxieties and be more attentive when it comes to filling in the bubbles on next year’s CMT test.

Yes, this is the state of affairs that our elected officials are creating.

With the end of summer insight, be sure to give your children an extra hug.

They’ll need it when then return to the “reformed” education system that Malloy and Pryor are so proud of.

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