You've all heard me rant about standardized tests: wastes time, costs ridiculous amounts of money, provides no useful information, creates anxiety, steals flexibility and creativity from teachers, unfairly judges teachers, and perverts one's self-identity. It is the last of which we speak today.

We were sitting around the dinner table discussing whether the kids wanted to opt out of this season's spate of high stakes tests. Rose completely opted out of hers and has been having a lovely week reading. David wanted to take the math portion, but opt out of the reading because, he said, "I'm not good at reading."

I was appalled.

David reads constantly. He is (or was) very proud of his reading skills. This test made him feel like he was a bad reader. I took a few minutes on my soap box, and he agreed that he might not be good at taking these tests, but he was a good reader. We all know about self defeating prophecies and living up to labels. I really don't care if he were a very bad reader; he needs to believe he can do it well.

David is in the second grade. He has been gobbling up the "Miss Daisy is Crazy" series. They are the 2.5 grade level. Fine. But a couple days after this conversation he was looking for a book to read, and I said, "I think Harry Potter is your reading level." So, he tried. And he's reading himself up and down the stairs, the I can't put it down syndrome. Harry Potter is 6th grade reading level. Now, I know about reading. I know having listened to this book on tape several times and being completely familiar with the whole Harry Potter world makes reading this book much easier than coming in cold, but it's still good reading. He's having fun, and he is proud of himself.