Prom Night

Well as most of ya’ll know prom was yesterday. I had so much fun. In the group I went in I was the only one who had a date. I enjoyed prom because we didn’t have to worry about the drama of other couples. At first we thought we were going to have a lot of time to kill but as the night went on we were wrong. My day started at 11 in the morning. I got my hair and make-up done. It took them two hours to do my hair. After, I went eat lunch with some friends. Then we went back to one of their houses to do their make-up. Then my best friend and I went to my house to get dressed and another one of my friends came over and met us. Then my date came. We left about 4:15 to go take pictures but the line was out of the door, so we left to visit a few family members. Then we went back to take pictures, and stood in line for over an hour. Then we had to go get cars to bring them to my aunt’s house in St. Amant so we didn’t all have to drive out there at 1 in the morning. Finally we got to go eat. We ate at Kevin’s Seafood. It was really good. After all of this we headed back to Gonzales for the dance. They announced prom king and queen. Immediately after that the civic center cleared out. To end our night we went to Wal-mart and got some junk food and then went back to my aunt’s. We changed out of our formal wear into comfortable clothes and took our make-up off. When we sat down we all fell asleep and that is how our long day ended.

LA's Educational System

In school systems of the United States, especially in Louisiana, teachers have to teach by a certain curriculum to meet the needs of every child. To make these curriculums, they make students take standardized tests, which supposedly show where these children are at for that certain level. Despite what standardized tests do for a school, it could cause a lot of pressure on a child that is about ten-years-old. Most children do not work well under pressure therefore Louisiana’s educational system should not solely depend on standardized testing.

Standardized tests cause a lot of pressure for any student taking them. These standardized tests consist of Graduate Exit Exams, iLeap, Leap, Iowa, ACT, and SAT. As students prepare for these test throughout their learning experiences, all they hear about is how important it is to do well on these types of tests. They have to hear it from the school administration and staff because if the results do not come out well, the state assists the school in trying to improve the scores before other actions are taken. The surrounding parishes and communities put pressure on these students because if the scores are not good, then that makes the parish and the communities look bad. Then there are the parents of the students who are taking the test and they make their kids seem as if they have to do well to make their parents proud. Not only do the students that are taking the tests have all this pressure on them, they also have the pressure they put on themselves. They feel as if they have to do well just to make all of these people happy. Children should not be placed under all this pressure just for a test.

Teachers teach by following and meeting guidelines of a curriculum. The state makes its curriculum according to how well the students have done on previous test. If they do not reach a certain point by a certain age, then the state must change the curriculum. The better the scores, the more the state feels as if they need to challenge the students. When there are several students that score low on the test while others score tremendously high, then why should they keep the curriculum the same? They believe the children need to be challenged, so what happens? They change it again. Changing the curriculum benefits some, but for others, such as the ones who scored lower than the rest of their class, what happens to them? They get left behind. How could this be though, since there should not be any child left behind? George W. Bush passed an act that was simply called “No Child Left Behind.” It says that no child should be left behind no matter what the excuse may be. One day maybe all of these people that are making decisions like these, not only Bush, should go sit in a classroom and see how hard it is for a student who has a learning disability to keep up with his or her classmates. Even the slower learners have a hard time keeping up with the others. Sometimes people need to step out of their own lives.

Even though scores of standardized tests are important, so much pressure should not be placed on the younger generation. Times have changed, and they will keep changing. Just because something worked for a while, does not mean it will work forever.




How Standardized Testing Damages Education. 20 August 2007. FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing. 6 April 2008.

Standardized Test Pressure Buildup. About.com: Elementary Education. 6 April 2008.