When I got into teaching, I knew it was a career that was difficult, but I never knew it was a career where I would constantly be fighting to prove the value of my job. What's more, I never thought I'd be fighting to prove this to people who should already know. People praise teachers up and down for, "doing what they do," but do they really know what that is? Or is it just convenient to say until a child is failing and it becomes more convenient to blame the teacher? Are there bad teachers? Absolutely. But is that the main issue? Far from it. Let's get real here shall we?

My students are not a number. We’ve gotten to the place as an education system where we have reduced mere children down to a number on a scale, and if they’re lucky they’re assigned a color on a data sheet to determine how they measure up to an arbitrary standard set by the state. When did education and the quest for knowledge become reduced down to this? When did passing a test become more important than acquisition of knowledge? Studies show that students are more stressed now than they used to be and why shouldn’t they be with the amount of pressure put on them? We are presenting this idea that the classroom isn’t a place where it’s ok to make mistakes given that they often lead us to mastery, but rather that a mistake will cost you your grade. “You better get good grades, because you want to get into college,” we bark at them from far too early an age. What about the fact that learning is one of the greatest pleasures in the world? What about the fact that such depth and beauty can be found in the areas of English, Social Studies, Science, and Math? But no, we’ve reduced it down to a standardized test at the end of the year which separates students into three categories: advanced (or as the kids call it: smart), pass (or as it’s often referred to: not good enough), or fail (or as most people see it: a failure; read: not going anywhere in life).

What we fail to acknowledge is that Johnny who “failed” his standardized test has actually grown immensely this year. We fail to recognize what really matters: improvement. We fail to actually recognize students for their overall worth and value and rather attach a numeric or letter grade to their value as humans, and as such they are forever impacted. What about the kid who is a bad test taker on that one test day, but excels consistently every day in class? What about the kid who has a horrendous home life, and as much as he/she tries, just can’t keep up with the material in class? Are these students any less of people because they’ve failed their standardized test? It would be silly to assume so, but yet we do! And students aren't ignorant; they know that a great deal of teachers do this, as well as their parents. So in turn, their self esteem level is now connected to their grade. I know this because I see it every day. The frantic look in a student's eye when they have a B+ instead of an A. The lack of effort in a D student because they don't think they can do it because, "I'm just dumb." Where does it start? From the importance we place on this arbitrary standard that one person deemed as acceptable.

Let’s also not forget that the whole reason for even putting these tests into place has to do with the fact that it “creates a standard of excellence” in the classroom. Does it really though? Is it really excellent that some teachers hand students a released test and have them analyze that instead of delving into deep analysis and higher level skills to improve overall retention? Is it excellent that non-standardized test classrooms are deemed “lesser” than those who have high stakes tests? Is it really excellent that some teachers neglect certain content because “it’s not on the test”?
This is the education system we are dealing with here and it’s not working. In fact, we’ve seen a severe decline over the past 10 years or so. We are producing students who are entering the workforce knowing how to take tests rather than how to problem solve and critically think. We’re teaching them how to be good at school, not how to be effective humans. No matter how you formulate standardized testing, it will never be able to capture the authenticity of higher level skills that should be, and often are, taught in the classroom. I dare say that if we treated teachers as the experts on the field (which by the way, we are trained to be), and let them teach the way they know how to teach, we would see a vastly different education system than the one we are living in now.

As a single teacher I can’t fix it. I can’t fix the way people think, and my voice isn’t paricularly loud by itself. But with more voices, the noise gets louder, and with more noise comes change. It starts with awareness so that’s what I’m doing: letting you know what your education system is like and how flawed it actually is. Why does it matter to you? Because with every paycheck you are contributing a portion of what you earn to our school system whether you use it or not. What it comes down to is: is this something that you're pleased you're investing in? I'm not only a teacher, I'm a taxpayer, and my answer is, no. I'm choosing to speak up. The question is, will you listen, or turn a deaf ear?