I was actually talking to a friend of mine, who has a ten year old. He was going through so much stress because of a test he had to take and pass in order to make it through to the next grade. Personally, I don't remember having to take any kind of test like that, at least not until high school. I think giving children at such a young age, these kind of tests, do not really help to assess where they are at. All it does is stress them out. Some people are just bad test takers. Yet if they fail, then they are not allowed to go to the next grade.
I do understand the reason for some assessment tests. Yet I only believe these tests should be only used to figure out where the child is academically, and how they can be helped, if they need it.
I looked at the German school system to see how they assess children. All children go to the same type of school, until the age of 10. At the age of 10, they are assessed to determine which one of four different tracks they will go into. Each track then determines where they will go from there, whether to a university or a trade school.
I think there is too much pressure on school aged children, especially at such a young age. Also, I wonder if parents sometimes put too much pressure on their kids to do exceptionally well, so they do better in assessments. Doing these types of tests do not necessarily do a good job of assessing the child as a whole.
http://library.thinkquest.org/26576/schoolpage.htm
