By Evelyn Banks

          Fourth grade is usually the time when students in Kalamazoo Public Schools start Ed Performance testing. Ed Performance is a test to see if students are progressing in certain subjects such as math, science and reading. Although we know how important Ed Performance is, some freshmen feel it isn’t necessary to have to take it in high school. Some have the opinion that Ed Performance is only necessary from elementary to middle school. Ed Performance is like the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, or MEAP, long and stressful, but very important.

            “I don’t see why we have to take Ed Performance,” said Arshon Mahone. “To me it’s pointless in high school, it just seems like they test us on things we have already learned in middle school.”

Ed Performance makes us freshmen feel inferior to upperclassmen, because some things we have to do we have already done in 8^th grade. We also have to take the MEAP which makes it worst. All these things we have to do again in high school it just makes it seem like we’re still in middle school. It’s like déjà vu. It would be nice to at least feel like we are in high school and not still in middle school.

            I think KPS should make a law that Ed performance stops at the end of eighth grade. If you realize it, Ed Performance stops us from learning new things. They pull us out of class to take this test on stuff we’ve already learned and we can just take these tests in class. We are missing stuff we should be learning. It’s not fair to make freshmen take it and not others. If we have to take Ed Performance, why not just make the whole school