My mom was a teacher. My mother-in-law was an elementary school principal. And I was valedictorian of my high school class.

I’ve been told that to homeschool is “anti-school,” but my background made me about as pro-school as could be when I was a young parent. My older children began their educational careers in school.

But this testing thing was already getting out of hand about two decades ago in North Carolina when we lived there. The EOGs, or End of Grade tests, that were instituted at my kids’ public school at that time were one of the reasons I decided to homeschool. Not only did the tests have a negative effect on many children, but the practice tests my own kids brought home were riddled with errors of logic and fact — and they didn’t even address the things I felt were important in education, like critical thinking, inquiry, logic, and creativity.

Today, we get this — “A Very Scary Headline About Kindergartners” — a WaPo article which discusses an op ed written by two top level education administrators in Oregon, who are lamenting the “sobering snapshot” provided by kindergarten test results.

This kind of thinking has our educational institutions pushing formal academics to younger and younger children.
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