Those bells means its testing time

Listen! The first school bells of the year are echoing.

Or is that the sound of alarm clocks alternately singing and snoozing from the inner recesses of teen bedrooms?

The annual start and stop routine of our educational system has arrived.

And tests. Wonderful tests.

Talk to any student, young or old. Tests introduce students to terms like "fear" and "stress" and "skipping." School is about tests. Always has been.

We test the eyes of the young ones. The ears and throat, too.

Many students are tested for entrance into special education.

Others are tested for scoliosis.

Nurses help diabetics prick their fingers to test for high or low sugar.

Breath-a-lyzers test for suspicious lung exhaust prior to the sock hop.

Nervous sophomores will test their luck acquiring a homecoming date. (Juniors and seniors get their dates by Independence Day.)

Athletes offer urine samples where lab techs, presumably wearing clothespins as nostril decorations, test for heaven-knows-what in those vials.

Volleyball players jump as high as they can to hit those funny little rotary stick-fingers. So coach can see if the ball would clear the net at the peak of the spike.

Cross country hopefuls are tested in the 10 minute run/walk/run. Or for the distance challenged, the run/walk/sit.

Football guys are tested in the 40. Then for agility.

Running backs are judged on a scale of "catch-ability." Can they catch? Can anyone else catch them?

Some test for steroids. Others for drugs. Calipers for body fat. Streamlined? Or slugs?

All are tested about every two weeks in math, language arts and the wide variety of sciences every curriculum promotes. (Social, biological, physical, family and consumer, abnormal, weird and useless)

Kids take criterion referenced and norm referenced tests. The difference between the two lies in whatever criterion is applied to the norm.

The Legislature says that we must now test all students according to the same questions at the same ages. Or something like that.

Upper class testers attempt the SAT. These are held on Saturday.

More choose the ACT. Mostly, because they took the pre-ACT as juniors. Which proclaims to accurately predict the senior ACT score.

So, it follows, kids take it to prove the testing agency right or wrong.

For the next nine months, kids will test the patience of their teachers. Parents will review test scores sent home from school. Schools will be judged upon the test scores of their populations.

Got your pencil ready?

Don Cunningham of Fremont is a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Opinion page.