Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday. No presents, just family and friends for turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pie, rolls, cranberry sauce and vegetables. It’s a day when we’re on the same page, giving thanks for America and its many gifts.

Thanksgiving is the least elite holiday as everyone eats pretty much the same meal. The day is a reminder of the importance of amiability around the table, of generosity as everyone brings some favorite food dish, of team work to get the table set and food served, and of wholeness as the social and emotional sides of us are refreshed. What Thanksgiving shouldn’t be and usually isn’t is a day to separate us by class, money, intelligence, or years of education.

So why is it we give thanks for enjoying each other for what we are and what we have to offer in all our various humanities one day a year yet measure our school children by the narrow and elitist reading and math boundaries of standardized tests the rest of the year?

A recent essay by David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times and writer for The Atlantic, asks this same question. He is the beneficiary of an elite education, resides in elite circumstances, has an elite career as an opinion writer and relishes an elite life of travel and accomplishment. Through all his “eliteness,” he recognizes he has an existence that, by its narrowly conceived meritocratic privilege, undermines what Americans give thanks for: freedoms, opportunity, individuality with community, progress, innovation, creativity and pluralism.

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Brooks particularly attacks anorexic measures in public education based on standardized test scores as foundational discriminators of merit that determine whether children move on to the next discriminators of merit, higher education at elite universities. He lists the various elements of us that are thus not measured: “emotional intelligence, relationship skills, passion, leadership ability, creativity, and courage.” (Brooks, The Atlantic, December 2024)

He leaves out physical athleticism, humor, artistry, mechanical skills, aesthetic capacity, etc. According to Brooks, our obsession with standardized testing began with our narrow definitions of intellectual capacity, aka intelligence, as the most significant element leading to success in life. Of course, intellectual capacity isn’t the main thing. Based on intelligence alone, President Franklin Roosevelt wouldn’t have cut it, according to intellectual observer Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was Roosevelt’s “first-class temperament” that allowed him to become the most effective, brilliant president of the 20th century.

So why do we pursue in Colorado an irrational but standardized measure of children’s capacity and progress? The first explanation is it’s the easiest piece of a person to quantify. Reading, writing and math tests, more or less, often less, let us know to what degree children can read, write and solve math problems based in the English language. The tests also tell us about the work salaries of the parents of the tested children. Children with “high performance” scores mostly come from well-to-do families. Children with “low performance” scores mostly come from low-income families.

Brooks points out the hundreds of thousands of dollars difference between parental investment in children from well-to-do families versus children in low-income families. It’s not just money. It’s what money buys: laptops, tablets, trips overseas, visits to museums and piano lessons, and full-on financial support of passions — athletic, intellectual, artistic and scientific.

These elite advantages disadvantage low-income, non-elite children from the get-go. Non-elite parents, many of whom are immigrants, first-generation Americans, or high school-educated, are too busy making a living to engage in the massive commitment of transporting  their children to various advantaging activities. Children of the elite, on the other hand, are often overly stressed and constrained by the imperatives of their elite parents.

Brooks observes a meritocracy will always exist in America, and every other country. But he doesn’t want a child’s merit based on standardized tests. He supports a broader system of encouraging behaviors that lead to successful, productive lives. He notes curiosity, an important component of lifelong learning and career success, diminishes in many children as they are forced to sit in their seats to acquire the rote knowledge necessary for high standardized test scores.

Project-learning that requires team effort, deep dives into information, creativity based on individual and collective effort, and consistent relationship building teaches students many skills and competencies combine to produce good results.

For those adults who want quick, easy tools to measure school and teacher effectiveness, project learning and the inclusion of extracurricular activities in assessing education quality aren’t options. This stance results in children categorized early in their little lives as successful intellectual talents or average-to-slow intellectual peewees. High performance test takers reap the disadvantage of arrogance and low performance test takers reap the disadvantage of low self esteem — disadvantage all the way around.

In a recent state Board of Education meeting, the “problem” of school districts and parents rejecting standardized testing came up. The recommended solution is to penalize districts with low testing participation in some way. Let’s not do that. Let’s give thanks some school districts and parents resist the harsh, elitist discriminations of standardized testing.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.