Testing

Time is moving us closer to the annual tests. I was in Colorado not too long ago, and it was CSAP week. At school, we're having a series of advisory classes to prepare the students to take their standards test, and I was remembering the new school district policy towards this. The big standards based assessment is to be the new guideline that will decide whether or not you graduate from high school with a diploma, or a "certificate of attendance." What is the deal with that? You can have straight A's all throughout your time in high school, but if you have an off day and don't pass every single section on whatever test it is your state takes, you don't get a high school diploma!

This leads into much larger issues regarding the whole No Child Left Behind policy that pretty much every single teacher will tell you is a horrible idea. If you ask me, or any teacher, we'll tell you that it needs to change. It isn't that we think it is a bad goal for all kids to pass a certain set of standards, but things are now at a point, at least in my district, where the 3 days of testing matter more than all 4 years that you put into high school. If you ask me, that isn't right. We're at a time where our principal has told us that we should be taking more and more time to teach the kids how to take tests because that is the "reality of our society. And all things are going to be assessed through testing". If you ask me, that isn't right either.

Maybe I'm just an idealist, but why can't school teachers actually be teachers anymore? When did learning to take a test become more important than doing well in all of your classes and having a well rounded education? I know it isn't my principal's fault, or even the superintendent's fault, this came on through our government, and it's the government that is going to have to change it. But we wonder why our education system isn't working, it's because of policies like this. I wish I knew how to fix it.