This is in response to an article published Sept. 8 about 8th-grade students in Portland. The article was about a writing prompt – a persuasive essay that asked students to either support or refute the statement that television may have a negative impact on learning – that nearly 15,000 students took.

The article revealed that 77 percent of those students did not meet standards. The test results weren’t revealed because the test was “invalid.”

It seems that students are either unwilling to learn, or teachers are unwilling to teach. Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said the test was flawed, although officials couldn’t determine why all those students failed. They shouldn’t search to find a fake answer when the truth is right under their noses. Teachers obviously aren’t doing their jobs if more than half of their class can’t write a simple persuasive essay.

What happened to the other thousands of kids who took the test and received their grade? Is it fair to the ones who failed? No, it isn’t.

People should stop making excuses and learn something.

Maybe the Department of Education shouldn’t baby students and teachers. Every time they fail, the department just erases the evidence and forgets about it.

What will happen to those kids once they get to college? If they fail there, will they blame it on the test, a pencil, the paper? Let’s take some responsibility for ourselves.

Taylor Rogers