The Standardized Testing Blues A 3DWriting Project As one who has little use for high stakes standardized tests, I was excited to learn that David Thornburg was starting a movement called Pencils Down.  This year at the National Education Computing Convention, he and Gary Stager introduced the audience to PencilsDown.org, their web site to provide information and community action to stop irresponsible testing. Inspired by David's song parodies, when I returned to my hotel room, I began to write the Standardized Testing Blues, sung to the tune of Johnny Cash's Fulsom Prison Blues. When I arrived home, I sat down and in about another hour and a half, I turned it into a 3DWriting project that includes a recording of the song and links to resources that illuminate some of the ideas in the song. Some of the resources are links out to the Internet and others are other 3DWriting documents I created to expand on ideas, while others are a combination of both. The hour and a half doesn't include the recording of the song. As you will hear, Johnny Cash as nothing to worry about from me. It took quite a few takes, not to mention the complaints from my wife, the broken glass, the time it took to quiet the dog down, and repairing the damage from prying the cat from the ceiling. From this point on, I will abandon the 3DWriting web site format and show you the document as it was created with 3DWriter. I hope you enjoy the song and spread the word about standardized testing and 3DWriting. The Standardized Testing Blues by Art Wolinsky awolinsky@3DWriting.com