Federal Demands & State Tests
Federal regulation in local school systems… Are we headed in the wrong direction?
Education has typically been left up to state and local agencies. However, there appears to be an increasing trend towards federal control. Ever since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, our school systems have been under attack. This report made the U.S. education system look like it was trapped in the middle Ages and prompted bureaucrats all over the country to get involved in trying to improve the system.
Improving schools should be a goal of the federal government! But how the schools should be improved, needs to be left up to the schools and their local communities. The federal government should be there to support the local and state governments, not force unrealistic demands down their throat.
With the federal government cracking down on the “poor performing educational system” in the US, many of the nation’s teachers are feeling the brunt of it. The Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind educational policy had good intentions, but its practicality and implementation leaves something to be desired. Teachers across the state and the nation are feeling the stress of having their children pass state tests.
There are many problems with these “high stakes tests” which have been pushed on the nations schools. These tests have created a culture of fear amongst many classroom teachers. Schools are struggling to figure out if they should offer carrots or sticks to get teachers to try “harder” to get their students to do well on the test. No school should ever punish a teacher for failing scores of a few kids. There are so many other factors (support at home, SES level, etc…) that determine student success. Failure to recognize these other factors is irresponsible on the part of the administration and the government.
Unfortunately, what many bureaucrats, and even some administrators who have not spent much time in the classroom, do not understand is that not all students learn the same way and therefore can not be expected to test the same way. These tests assume that all kids can take an multiple choice test with extended answers here and there. These types of tests are not new to the education world. However, in the past this type of testing was not such a big deal, because the tests did not dictate your future. Putting such a high priority on one single test is disastrous for the students, the teachers, and the educational system as a whole.
One of the biggest complaints I hear is how the state test have frozen teacher flexibility and creativeness. Many schools are now implementing pacing guides, which restrict teachers to teach only certain material on a certain day. This leaves no room for review or reinforcement. Teachers find themselves teaching to the test instead of using their creative minds to come up with ways to help students grab abstract concepts and ideas. These tests are stifling the art of teaching!
Hopefully one day the government will wake up and realize that state testing is not the “be all end all” for determining student and teacher success. Although it may provide important feedback in various parts of the curriculum, it should not be the deciding factor of growth!
