Best tests & school Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I am a really bad test taker. I can get straight As in school, but I get nervous on test.”

“With demands for special education or standardized test prep being shouted in their ears, public schools can't always hear a parent when he says: 'I want my child to be able to write contracts in Spanish,' or, 'I want my child to shake hands firmly,' or, 'I want my child to study statistics and accounting, not calculus.”

Want Writing Children Hands Able School Parent Study Special Demand Tests Ears My Children Shakes Statistics Contracts Public School Accounting Calculus Preps Special Education

Author:Amity Shlaes

“I went to school, and I remember that you had to do these tests to find out what set you're in - how clever you are. I put down "Kit Harington," and they looked at me like I was completely stupid, and they said, "No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid." It was only then I learnt my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have, but in the end I always stuck with Kit, because I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a "Chris."”

Years Kind Said Ends School Remember Names Felt Stupid Tests Crisis Stuck Clever Existential They Said Bizarre Existential Crisis

Author:Kit Harington

“But in any case, I did poorly on the tests and so, in the first three years of school, I had teachers who thought I was stupid and when people think you're stupid, they have low expectations for you.”

People Thinking Years Firsts School Three Cases Teacher Stupid Lows Expectations Tests Three Years You Re Stupid Low Expectations I Was Stupid

Author:Robert Sternberg

“The people who run the international tests told us, "the biggest predictor of student success is choice." Nations that "attach the money to the kids" and thereby allow parents to choose between different public and private schools have higher test scores. This should be no surprise; competition makes us better.”

People Should Different Running Kids School Choices Nations Parent Students Higher Tests Competition Surprise International Score Student Success Private School Test Scores

Author:John Stossel

“In a Glasser Quality School there is no such thing as a closed book test. Students are told to get out their notes and open their books. There is no such thing as being forbidden to ask the teacher or another student for help.”

Book Helping School Asks Quality Teacher Teaching Students Tests Notes Forbidden

Author:William Glasser

“Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so? Support like, say, spending a day apiece watching twenty different jobs and then another week at their top three choices, with salary charts and projections and probabilities of graduating that subject given their test scores? The more so considering this is a central allocation question for the entire economy?”

“Lord, let me make this rule To think of life as school, And try my best To stand each test, And do my work, And nothing shirk. Should someone else outshine This dullard head of mine, Should I be sad? I will be glad. To do my best Is Thy behest. Some day the bell will sound, Some day my heart will bound, As with a shout That school is out And lessons done, I homeward run.”

Thinking Should Trying Heart Done Running School Sound Lord Mines My Heart Lessons Tests Let Me Bounds Glad Bells Should I Shirk

Author:Maltbie Davenport Babcock

“Don't you love it when people in school are like, “I'm a bad test taker”? You mean, you're stupid. Oh, you struggle with that part where we find out what you know? Oh. No, no, I can totally relate. See, because I'm a brilliant painter, minus my God-awful brushstrokes. Oh, how the masterpiece is crystal up here, but once paint hits canvas, I develop Parkinson's.”

People Knows Mean I Can Humor School Funny Struggle Stupid Tests Paint Brilliant Painter Awful Relate Canvas Masterpiece Crystals Minus Parkinson Parkinson's You Re Stupid

Author:Daniel Tosh

“I was lucky enough to go to college for four years. At what was supposedly a hippie school with no tests and no grades, blah blah blah, I wasn't learning that. I was taking photography classes. That stuff just wasn't talked about. It was like, "Does this picture have the right about of grey in it?" It wasn't even an art school. It was a state-run school.”

Years Doe Art States Enough Running School Stuff Class Four College Lucky Photography Tests Grades Four Years Grey Hippie Art School Blah

Author:Kathleen Hanna

“With any kind of physical test, I don't know what it is, I always seem to get competitive. Remember when you were in school and they'd do those hearing tests? And you'd really be listening hard, you know? I wanted to do unbelievable on the hearing test. I wanted them to come over to me after and go, 'We think you may have something close to super-hearing. What you heard was a cotton ball touching a piece of felt. We're sending the results to Washington, we'd like you to meet the President.'”

Thinking Knows Kind May Hard Seems Wanted School Remember Felt President Results Pieces Heard Like You Listening Tests Balls Hearing Touching Unbelievable Remember When Cotton

Author:Jerry Seinfeld

“All we know is that the school achievement, IQ test score, and emotional and social development of working mothers' children are every bit as good as that of children whose mothers do not work.”

Knows Children School Mother Social Bits Emotional Development Achievement Tests Score Social Development Mother Child Test Scores

Author:Sandra Scarr

“Standardized tests are an indicator of the kind of service taxpayers are receiving - and whether schools, educators and policymakers are doing their jobs. In the United States, taxpayers spend almost $600 billion annually on public education, so it's not unreasonable to ask what all that money is producing. In fact, it's irresponsible not to know.”

“There have been many measures taken to try to turn the educational system towards more control, more indoctrination, more vocational training, imposing a debt, which traps students and young people into a life of conformity... That's the exact opposite of [what] traditionally comes out of The Enlightenment. And there's a constant struggle between those. In the colleges, in the schools, do you train for passing tests, or do you train for creative inquiry?”

“I went to law school which is a 3-year program in the US that is focused primarily on memorizing certain doctrines and taking exams that test whether you can apply those doctrines to help prepare for the bar exam. If you are lucky, you get a few classes where you are encouraged to think more critically and read critical texts rather than just casebooks, and perhaps write a paper that is not a legal memo or brief.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Years Helping School Law Certain Class Lucky Paper Program Tests Critical Focused Bars Doctrine Where You Are Exam Law School Lucky You Memorizing Memos Bar Exam

Author:Dean Spade

“I have not seen that standardised tests make the profession less attractive, though some principals respond to them in a way that drives the best teachers out of their schools (by over-emphasising test prep in the school curriculum for example). On the other hand, great teachers want benchmarks to measure progress and tests can help with that.”

Way Want Helping Hands School Teacher Progress Example Tests Profession Attractive Principal Curriculum Great Teacher Best Teacher Preps School Curriculum

Author:Wendy Kopp

“Downwinders, meaning those people, individuals, communities that were downwind of the nuclear test site. During those years when we were testing atomic bombs above ground, when we watched them for entertainment from the roofs of our high schools, little did we know what was raining down on us, little did we know what would appear years later.”

People Knows Years Littles School Individual Community High School Rain Tests Entertainment Nuclear Bombs Roof Site Testing Atomic Bomb

Book:A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams

Source: A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams

“There's no true value placed in learning, if the point of you learning something is to simply know it for a test, to get a grade, to go to the good school.”

Ifs Knows School Values Tests Grades True Value Good School

Author:Ezra Miller

“Parents are used to being made to feel guilty about...their contribution to the population problem, the school tax burden, and declining test scores. They expect to be blamed by teachers and psychologists, if not by police. And they will be blamed by the children themselves. It is hardy a wonder, then, that they withdraw into what used to be called "permissiveness" but is really neglect.”

“I am asking teachers to understand that we must make the education relevant for the children. If they're only working for the tests or they're only working to please us, they're not going to be interested in school.”

Ifs Children School Teacher Please Tests Asking Relevant

Author:Rafe Esquith

“The very essence of school is elitism. Schools exist to teach, to test, to rank hierarchically to promote the idea that knowing and understanding more is better than knowing and understanding less.”

Ideas School Understanding Teach Knowing Tests Essence Elitism Knowing And Understanding More Is Better

Book:In Defense of Elitism

Source: In Defense of Elitism

“Everything they teach in school is oriented so that they can test it to show that you know it, instead of taking note of the obvious, which is that people learn by doing what people want to do.”

People Knows Want Shows School Teach Tests Notes Obvious

Author:Roger Schank

“So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do not be surprised to see American students continuing to score lower on international tests than students in countries that spend a lot less per pupil than we do.”

Long Country School Jobs Teacher Students Members Tests Unions International Treated Score Continuing Public School Pupils Teachers Unions

Author:Thomas Sowell

“Reducing children to a test score is the worst form of identity theft we could commit in schools.”

Children School Form Worst Identity Tests Commit Score Theft Reducing Test Scores Identity Theft

Author:Stephen Covey

“Apparently almost anyone can do a better job of educating children than our so-called 'educators' in the public schools. Children who are home-schooled by their parents also score higher on tests than children educated in the public schools. ... Successful education shows what is possible, whether in charter schools, private schools, military schools or home-schooling. The challenge is to provide more escape hatches from failing public schools, not only to help those students who escape, but also to force these institutions to get their act together before losing more students and jobs.”

“I think that everybody, even if they had the best high school experience, there was something about high school. Whether you dropped a pass, or whether you flunked the test, or you didn't go to the prom.”

Ifs Thinking School High School Tests Prom School Experience

Author:Neal H. Moritz

“One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun - especially for a kid who was a massive sports fan.”

Kids School Next Fun Sports Hours Fans Dad Tests Lifetime My Dad Massive Afternoon Next Day Cricket Sydney Once In A Lifetime Melbourne Sports Fan Cricket Match Skipping School

Author:Hugh Jackman

“I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn't cool.”

School Tests Be Good Grades Public School Sixth Grade

Author:Bill Gates

“The origins of these [schooling] federal policies were tied to President Johnson's war on poverty. Supplemental funds were sent to school districts serving poor children to compensate for issues related to poverty. Since the enactment of NCLB, the focus on mitigating poverty has been replaced by a focus on accountability as measured by test scores.”

“After finishing art school I was applying to stores like Home Depot and Walmart. You know, places where you have to take a urine test before you get your minimum wage. Even those places wouldn't hire me. So I was lucky when I got included in a group show at the Richard Heller gallery that kind of started my art career.”

Knows Kind Art Shows Home School Careers Groups Lucky Tests Stores Minimum Gallery Finishing Minimum Wage Art School Walmart

Author:Marcel Dzama

“I don't really know. I think the first test is when you're very little and you fart, and you laugh at it and so do your friends and family. I knew before I was funny I was very annoying so I have that covered. I think it was because I was not very good in school I used humor as a defense mechanism. When I started doing plays and stuff at school I decided that I was going to keep doing it until someone tells me to stop and get a real job.”

Thinking Knows Firsts Littles Real Play School Jobs Used Stuff Laughing Decided Tests Very Good Defense Covered Annoying Mechanism Family And Friends Fart Real Jobs Defense Mechanisms

Author:Joel McHale

“In California we froze property taxes, school size increased, test scores declined, and there was a massive middle-class white flight to private schools. We're turning into Victorian England at a very rapid rate.”

School White Class Middle Taxes Tests England Property Rate Size Flight California Score Middle Class Massive Rapids Victorian Private School Test Scores Property Taxes

Author:Robert Hass

“I think it's good that you test the reality that surrounds you in your neighbourhood with the reality as it is in other parts of the world; you come up with a better judgment. I'm not meaning that literally you can only do that and not go to school at all but in terms of enrichment of a personality I think it's a fabulous thing.”

Thinking World Reality School Term Personality Judgment Tests Come Up Surround Fabulous Enrichment Neighbourhoods

Author:Pierre Trudeau

“I think the first thing parents need to start doing is absolutely refuse to cooperate with any psychological evaluation of children in school. Schools should not be mental hospitals. Parents should say that the only tests they want their children to have are those respecting their academic subjects and nothing else.”

Thinking Want Needs Should Firsts Children School Parent Subjects Tests Refuse Psychological Hospitals Academic Evaluation

Author:Peter Breggin

“I like going to schools and telling classes that when I was a child, I failed every "will this kid become a writer" test.”

Children Kids School Class Tests

Author:Kate DiCamillo

“I'm really into the rights of immigrants, the rights of the working poor. I'm one of those little activist types. I probably would have just gone to law school. And the scary part is that I was one of those kids who always tested really well. You put a test in front of me, and I would have been like do-do-do-do-do. I probably would have been some community lawyer somewhere - if anything, that's probably what I would have been doing.”

Ifs Wells Littles Has Beens Kids School Law Community Poor Gone Rights Fronts Type Tests Scary Lawyer Immigrants Activist Tested Law School

Author:Junot Diaz

“In Jamaica we had the English way of schooling from the age of four, so when I got to America I was already a few years advanced because I started school at the age of three-and-a-half rather than six and my grades moved up accordingly. In America, they start you at school at six because the grades are different. I had to take a test and they didn't know what to do with me. It wasn't that I was any smarter; I had just started younger. All of a sudden I was jumped from eighth to tenth grade. They said I was very smart, but I was only smart in languages, really.”

Knows Way Years Said Different Age School America Three Language Half Four Six Smart Tests Moved Grades Smarter They Said Schooling Very Smart Jamaica

Author:Grace Jones

“I have an absolutely unshakable faith in kids, grounded in the fact that I worked for three years in one of the worst public schools in Baltimore, with kids most people would write off because of their backgrounds. But, when I set high expectations, at the end of the day, these kids went from scoring at the bottom on standardized tests, to scoring at the top, despite their unfortunate circumstances.”

“I got good grades in school, but I'm not sure if I'm smart or if it just means I can study. I've never taken one of those IQ tests, and I don't want to. It's so pointless. As long as you enjoy life and have fun and you're healthy and happy, that's what matters.”

Ifs Want Mean Long I Can Matter School Fun Enjoy Study Taken Healthy Smart Tests Having Fun Not Sure Grades What Matters Enjoy Life Pointless Grades In School Good Grades Healthy And Happy

Author:Dolph Lundgren

“By far the most important factor in the success or failure of any school, far more important than tests or standards or business-model methods of accountability, is simply attracting the best-educated, most exciting young people into urban schools and keeping them there.”

People Important School Young Models Standards Tests Exciting Method Factors Educated Accountability Urban Business Models Success Or Failure

Author:Jonathan Kozol

“Today, I marvel at the vegan foods in the supermarket, at the cruelty-free clothing choices in stores, and at the fantastic alternatives to dissection in schools, the modern ways to test medicines without killing rabbits and beagles, the many forms of entertainment involving purely human performers.”

“But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.”

Firsts Littles School Bits Realizing Duty Little Bit Tests Candidates Pilots Selected

Author:Alan Shepard

“With my academic achievement in high school I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that's been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that - there are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action to try to balance out those effects.”

“In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.”

“As you know from school, it's when you have not prepared for the test that you have the fear of failing. And if you have prepared, even if you fail, you've done your best.”

Ifs Knows Done School Fear Failing Tests Prepared Fear Of Failing

Author:Alice Walker

“I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I - if I'm not interested in something, I don't grasp it.”

Ifs Years Reason School Left Understanding Tests Not Interested Dyslexic Schoolwork

Author:Richard Branson

“Artemis felt like he was six again and caught hacking the school computers trying to make the test questions harder”

Trying School Felt Six Computer Tests Harder Caught Hacking Artemis

Author:Eoin Colfer

“If the story had been about anyone else, it would been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate ---sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school.”

Ifs Stories Kids School Chance Son High School Doctors Tests Tendencies Biology Affliction Afghan

Book:The Kite Runner: Rejacketed

Source: The Kite Runner: Rejacketed

“We constantly see surveys that reveal this ignorance, especially among our high school students,78 percent of whom, in a recent nationwide multiple-choice test, identified Abraham Lincoln as 'a kind of lobster.' That's right: more than three quarters of our nation's youth could not correctly identify the man who invented the telephone.”

Source: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States

“My high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Inverholl, once had me take an aptitude test to figure out my future. The number one job recommendation for my set of skills was an air traffic accident investigator, of which there are fewer than fifty in the world. The number two job was a museum curator for Chinese-American studies. The number three job was a circus clown.”

Source: The Jodi Picoult Collection #4: Change of Heart, Handle with Care, and House Rules

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