Florida school stops giving kids Mountain Dew before standardized tests

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Florida school stops giving kids Mountain Dew before standardized tests
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Everyone knows that the best way to get kids to perform better on standardized tests isn't to teach them the material, but to give them a jolt of sugar and caffeine right before the test. So why is this Florida elementary school making headlines?

Creel Elementary School was serving each student three tablespoons of Mountain Dew before the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test until Brevard County administrators found out and stopped the tradition. The school's principal, Kathryn Eward, told Florida Today that they'd been administering the soda to students for 10 years.

"We don't think we were giving them enough to really get into" the negative impacts of sugar highs and lows, Eward said. "We've done it for years. The kids look forward to the treats."

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Perhaps they can also look forward to diabetes.

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Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.