While there are currently seven state mandated standardized tests this number does not include the five that high school students are also required to take. In total there are thirteen state mandated tests over the course of the school year. After district tests are included, this accumulates to seventeen standardized tests. We, the students of Shelby County Schools are requesting that there not be so many standardized tests, and that the school board should consider eliminating some if not all of the district standardized tests.

The undersigned persons, being students, parents, and the community of the Shelby County School district, in the city of Memphis, hereby petition board members to:

Enact a municipal bylaw to end district standardized testing among students. Excessive standardized testing has gone far too long with little action taken against it. In all honesty, no one enjoys taking standardized tests, let alone taking over ten throughout the school year. Shelby County tests its students more than any other school district in Tennessee with approximately 50 days in the school calendar reserved specifically for standardized testing. It simply cuts into students’ instructional time, and puts an immense amount of pressure on the teachers and students; especially the younger students. According to education researcher Gregory J. Cizek, there are a plethora of accounts "illustrating how testing... produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both.” Out of all the reasons why we believe this to be true, one distinctive reason is there is also too much reliance on a test to prove one’s worth or rank. How can a few objective questions possibly be used to tell someone that they are not shrewd enough to live up to a certain potential; or use those same detached questions to measure one’s ability to succeed? Everyone thinks differently, acts differently, and interprets differently, so it is only fair that there is a test to evaluate students based on that rather than one style of an ambiguous and objective test. According to late education researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include "creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity."