“I didn’t even try because I always fail.” Fail. This heartbreaking statement is from a student in a Williamsburg-James City County middle school who recently took their Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) standardized tests.
In 2024, 1 in 6 children in the U.S. experienced a mental health disorder.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new “Right Help, Right Now” mental health initiative is a good start, but it only addresses symptoms, not the root causes. We need to acknowledge standardized testing’s role in the youth mental health crisis within our schools.
Students from racial minority groups , students with learning disabilities and students with test-taking anxiety consistently perform below their peers. When these disadvantaged students fail the SOL year after year, it extinguishes their love of learning, some stop trying in the classroom, or their mental health spirals downward. Fail is a powerful word with lifelong, damaging effects on children.
When our children are anxious before taking the SOLs or devastated after receiving a “fail” score, it is often the mother or caregiver who picks up the pieces at home. Mothers’ voices matter, especially when it comes to children’s mental health. A survey in the local Williamsburg Moms Facebook group received several dozen immediate responses, 40% of whom are both mothers and educators.
Below are just a few comments on how the SOL impacts our children in real life. Numerous studies suggest that standardized testing does.