New Peanuts Movie Provides a Subtle Smack to High-Stakes Testing

PolitiChicks.comBeware, spoiler alert! This isn’t the main part of the story but it’s something a person worried about testing would see.

Somewhere near the beginning of The Peanuts Movie, Charlie Brown and his friends sit in a classroom and listen to the strange megaphone-in-a-box “waah wa waah waaaah waaaah” sound coming from their teacher. After the noise the children all say, “No, not the yearly standardized test!” They’re not excited about this, same as most kids.

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Later they hold an assembly and give a ribbon to Charlie Brown, who received a perfect score of 100 on his standardized test. Everyone loves Charlie now that he’s smart. He’s the most popular kid in the school and the message is, “Do well on standardized tests and you’ll have an amazing life!”

About this time I’m inwardly cringing.

At the end of the assembly they hand Charlie Brown his test with the perfect score on it and to his surprise he sees that it’s not his test at all–it belongs to Peppermint Patty. Poor Charlie realizes that they mixed up their tests and admits to everyone that it wasn’t his test that received the perfect score, therefore he didn’t deserve the ribbon.

The test that Peppermint Patty turned in was one hastily filled out at the end of the testing period for she had fallen asleep and didn’t have enough time to actually look at any of the questions or answers.

She filled her form out by selecting bubbles to fill in that would ultimately create a smiley face. No thought, no preparation, nothing. And for this, she received a perfect score.

This is the perfect illustration of how standardized tests are pretty useless. I’m no longer cringing, I’m laughing out loud.

Thank you Charlie Brown! I knew I loved that block head!

Macey France

Oregon PolitiChick Macey France is co-founder of the Stop Common Core in Oregon and is working with parents across the state to educate and help them to learn how to advocate for their children's education. Macey has spoken at many Common Core informational meetings across the state of Oregon. Macey's articles on Common Core have been picked up by various news outlets and she has been a guest on many radio shows across the nation. Macey's article about The Bluest Eye was featured on a panel on Al Jazeera America and was nominated for a CPAC Blogger Award for Best Sunlight Post of 2013. Macey is a strong conservative with libertarian leanings, making her more of a "conservatarian." Preserving the constitutional and moral values of that this great nation was founded on for her children is her priority. She is a stay at home mom of two boys who are now in elementary school. As a mom who has always been interested in politics, religion and all of the taboo subjects, she has always had a lot to say about the state of the nation. When she realized the Common Core Standards were not only bad news for children but a government coup over education, she decided to fight back and is now considered one of the nation's leading experts on all-things-Common Core. When she's not having uncomfortable arguments with strangers on Facebook she can be found spending time with her husband of 15 years and two sons. Find Macey France on Facebook and Twitter: @MaceyFrancePC

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