Academic Standardized Testing

Each level of government have all posted their own standards for our children's academic achievement. With standards come tests - is there time left to learn?

How many standardized tests did you take when you were in school? Even if you graduated last year, I am willing to bet the students entering school this year will take more. Although I'm not ready to ban standardized testing, as parents, I do believe our educational system needs to take a second look at the effect the sheer volume of these tests has on students.

Standardized testing impacts our children in two significant ways. The first - and perhaps the most imperceptible by parents and teachers - is the constant stress it puts on our children at the expense of all else.

Think about test day when you were in school...even if you were a child without any test anxiety; didn't your palms sweat a little bit? Did you worry about how you would measure up against the others? Didn't your breakfast sit a little bit uneasy in your stomach? Stress is not a bad thing - it can motivate growth - but how often should we be subjecting our children to the idea that it is important to be a head of the curve, so to speak. As I said, I am not against testing - any kind of testing - it is an important tool to assess where a child or group of children are and should be used to point out strengths and weaknesses of the current curriculum.

This leads me to the second, and I believe the most important impact on our children both educationally and morally: Teachers are now in a cycle of teaching to the next standardized test rather than to the needs and interests of our children! Learning takes place naturally - not in a canned curriculum made up of specific points from bureaucrats with no educational experience!

Most unfortunate is that we have coupled funding to the results of these tests - most of which I am convinced are skewed! Not only can very little real learning take place while teaching to these tests. I can be taught facts all day long and perhaps spew them back to you and receive an 'A' on a test - but that does not reflect any knowledge that I can incorporate into what I already know and put to use in the future! There is a huge difference.

Some teachers feel they have been put in a place required cheating to increase funding to the school! What kind of a moral statement does that make to our children coming from a role model?

We need to take a giant step back, as a society who treasures our children and our future to enact a genuine educational reform.... not a political reform to win votes, but a genuine reform that will:

~ Pay professional, caring educators like they are professionals

~ Make a more efficient use of & increase accountability of funding sent to schools without putting the burden on our children

~ Limit standardized testing to once per year

~ Use testing normally done within the classroom setting during the course of study to monitor the current teaching techniques for that group of children

While studying education, my professors taught us that if an entire class fails a test it is due to one of two reasons: The testing technique was faulty or the teaching technique was faulty. If a teacher needs to "adjust the curve" so the proper amount of students fall within passing, learning is not taking place in that classroom. New teachers need to learn to adjust their sails when they get blown off course!