Test Protest

I would like to say BRAVO to David Wasserman. Teachers are basically "teaching for the test". Kids are not learning how to question, critically think, or develop learning/thinking skills that will take them much farther throughout their educational careers than test taking skills. The job of a teacher is demanding as it is, but to teach only for the test throughout the year makes it much tougher. I most definitely agree that this is something we need to be sure our local and federal government officials are aware of. At some point, we need to be able to improve our educational system to a point where we are producing quality young minds in quality systems. Thanks for keeping this issue in the forefront David Wasserman!!
ksm

I applaud David Wasserman. I have two children - one with a learning disability and one who is gifted and in the GATE program. Because of the "No Child Left Behind" law my two children are graded on the same bell curve which makes it very difficult for her to get an "A". I also recently found out that because of this law, I can make no modifications to her high school curriculum or she will not receive a diploma when she graduates just a "Certificate of Completion." "No Child Left Behind" is leaving MANY special needs children behind. It has also taken the "Joy" out of teaching because the teachers are only teaching what is on the test.

Thank you David. You have covered one part of the problems that children are facing in today's education. As a substitute teacher another problem that I have found it that since our local high schools have removed vocational classes from the school many of the students will have nothing to do but low paying jobs after graduation. College is great but many kids either do not have the means or want to continue to higher education. I think we need to include the bricklaying, carpentry, sewing, etc. in the school so that these kids will have a marketable skill upon graduation from High School. Everybody is not going to go to college, so we are letting those kids down by not offering them some sort of marketable skill.

I agree 100%. The intent of the law was to ensure that race, economic status, and handicap would not limit a child in receiving a quality education. However, it has become a tool to measure nothing. If a school has 20 yearly objectives and meets 19 of the 20, it is a failure. Only in this law would 95% mastery be seen as an "F." Nothing has changed over time. There are academically advanced children, there are average children, and there are academically challenged children. That bell curve still has the majority in the middle. The tests are designed to put everyone in the middle or above and that is just not possible.
When you raise the bar so high, some kids realize (through one of their 8 intelligences) that the bar is out of their reach, and they quit school. Think about a short person. If you physically raise a bar so high that the person cannot jump up and reach it, after a while, they quit trying to jump. You will have the over-achiever who will eventually reach it, but the majority won't. That is what NCLB has done. Now they label schools that have many drop-outs as "drop-out factories." NCLB simply raised the standards out of reach, so most quit rather than continuing to jump in a futile effort.
Shannon Fike
SCSDB
Spartanburg, SC 29302

I have disliked the Colorado CSAP tests that the "no child left behind law created" also. I wish more teachers would take this stance. I'm a parent of a student that Should have been left behind in second grade and was denied(I requested him to be left behind) , but because of this STUPID law he is now a Junior in High School and tests at a 6 grade level. What does this say about our Future?

When are we going to realize that the primary purpose of public education has little to do with educating children? Public education has become a laboratory for the latest educational "theories", social engineering, political correctness, and a forum for the teachers' unions, not to mention a self-perpetuating bureaucracy primarily concerned with moving large sums of money from one place to another.
As a retired teacher with 28 years experience, I find it amazing that the dedicated teachers (and there are still many, though their numbers are dwindling) can continue to motivate students despite the incredible roadblocks that the local, state, and federal bureaucrats place before them. The pressure on these teachers to prepare and organize stunning amounts of paperwork, presumably to go into a file somewhere, never to be seen again, and the demands of teaching to standardized tests which measure little, leave little time to truly connect with students.
Public education is broken, and I don't really know if it can be fixed.

I'DE SAY WE AS PARENTS ARE ALL IN AGREEMENT IN OUR COMMENTS HERE.....I SAY WE PASS THIS POST ON TO THE PROPER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, SO THAT THEY CAN SEE HOW CLUELESS THEY REALLY ARE ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO "OUR KIDS".....PARENTS, TEACHERS, STUDENTS UNITE!!!!
AMEN

I am glad someone spoke up about this, especially a teacher. The truth is there are children who need to be left behind. There are many reasons, imaturity, student-teacher conflict, losing a parent, etc, all these can affect learning, but passing them on to the next grade will only put them further behind, and when , or if they do make it to college they will see what a great injustice was done. We are so worried about their self-esteem, you'll worry more when your child can't make in this world because you didn't want them left behind, when the real reason was YOU DIDN'T WANT TO BE EMBARRASSED!!!!!. i'LL EMBARRASSEMENT ANYDAY IF IT MEANS MY CHILD WILL GET THE EDUCATION NEEDED.

Way to set a civic example there Mr. Wasserman. Let us all continue to take your lead and dress sloppy, have unkempt hair, and a scraggy beard while picking and choosing what laws we wish to follow. I know that is just how I want my children to look and behave while they struggle to read the want ads and scrawl their poor handwriting on job applications at the local burger joint.

Public education has nothing to do with educating children. It has become a gigantic test tube for social engineering, a sounding board for political correctness, a source of free day-care for working parents, and an enormous bureaucracy that exists simply for the sake of moving money from one place to another. As a retired teacher with 28 years experience, I consider it a miracle that the majority of our children turn out as well as they do. The dedicated educators of the public school system help children achieve in spite of, not because of, the efforts of the local, state, and federal public education bueaucrats.

I WOULD LIKE TO COMMEND MR. WASSERMAN FOR TAKING A STAND. I BELIEVE WE AS PARENTS NEED TO DO THE SAME. OUR CHILDREN ARE FALLING BY THE WASTESIDE, WHILE THE SCHOOLS ARE ISSUING THERE STANDARDIZED TEST. THESE TESTS ARE EXTREMELY BIAS. WE LIVE IN THE SOUTH, HOW CAN OUR KIDS ANSWER REASONING QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT TO DO ON A SNOW DAY? THEY CAN'T IT SNOWS ONCE EVERY 20YEARS OR SO HERE. I THINK THE TEACHERS TEACHING THE KIDS SHOULD BE ALLOWED MAKE UP THE TESTS, BECAUSE THEY KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT AND WHAT THE KIDS SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH. THE "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" IS A JOKE. EVERY TEACHER AND PARENT THAT IS OPPOSITION OF THESE TESTS SHOULD COME TOGETHER AND TAKE A STAND FOR OUR CHILDREN, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. GOD BLESS YOU!

WOW...IDE SAY WE ARE ALL IN AGREEMENT IN ALL THESE POSTINGS'.......WE SHOULD FORWARD THIS INFO TO THE PROPER GOVERMENT OFFICIALS SO THEY CAN GET A CLUE AS TO HOW CLUELESS THEY ARE!!!!! PARENTS, TEACHERS, STUDENTS UNITE!!!!!!!!

Does anyone out there understand that NCLB requires that states measure yearly progress, but it is up to the states to determine how that progress is measured? Is NCLB perfect? No, but it has exposed some of our schools who had such low expectations for their students that they were doing little more than warehousing them. In the age of SAT and ACT scores determining which colleges a student can go to, it seems that a teacher that refuses to allow his students to be tested is not protecting the students, he is hiding his own incompetence.

Thank You David Wasserman! Our children need to be prepared to exist in the real world and not educated to pass a test. We need to be reaching our children in the way that they learn, not some blanket education that prepares them for what?

Thank you, thank you Mr. Wasserman. Teachers must be more vocal about the many problems we face in our educational system. We certainly are not consulted. As a special education teacher I have seen descrimination on the rise since this act came in to place. We were becoming an integrated part of our school until test scores suddenly became more important than anything else. My students became invisible, the progress they made, and struggled to make, was considered worthless. It is heartbreaking and unacceptable. If America wants to get the educational system back on track put the teachers in charge!!

Thank you David Wasserman for taking a stand! Our schools need to educate our children, not teach them to jump through hoops. Is this what we consider education today? Our children should love to learn and be prepared to function in society with their "public" education.