The news that nearly 200 teachers in Atlanta were known to throw "changing parties" to adjust kids' standardized test answers, thereby making themselves look like better educators, has rocked the nation. "How dare these teachers betray these kids?" pundits are asking. Simple: because ours is a nation that took the educational emphasis off individual kids a long time ago. In short: no one cares about our kids but us.
As a parent, it's depressing to think about my kid being "just a number," but as she pushes ahead in the public school system, I can't deny it. The halcyon days of kindergarten are behind us, the rote memorization and teaching to the test are to come. I'm the only one left to ensure she's "well-rounded." It's my job as a parent, maybe, but I would appreciate some help on the way. Sadly, I don't expect it from our overwhelmed teachers.
In the post-No Child Left Behind era swept in by former President George W. Bush, our education system is focused on competition. Pitting teachers against teachers, and even worse, pitting kids against kids. Standardized tests that sweep away individuality in learning styles for the sake of an easy number to stamp on kids' permanent records are now de rigueur. And the better a school performs, the better they'll look in President Obama's Race for the Top to gain federal monies to improve the schools.
Don't get me wrong. What 178 Atlanta elementary and middle school teachers were doing, faking their kids' success, altering documents, lying to officials, is a travesty. If the kids are failing the tests, it means they're not LEARNING the material. But it's a mark of a system that the best way teachers see to help kids is to make it LOOK like they're helping them. I'm only surprised we haven't found more teachers doing this. Because failing kids are ignored in today's education system, changing test scores doesn't just make a teacher appear to be doing a better job. It positions those kids for more positive attention, their school for more of the much-needed federal dollars. The education system has been rebuilt so that cheating is better than admitting you're having a rough time.
What does that teach our kids? Nothing in figurative AND literal senses. They aren't learning the material, but what may be even worse is they aren't learning that it's OK to fail. What's important is that you ask for help, that you find another way to succeed.
If we want to keep teachers from being pushed to change test scores, it's pretty simple. We cut out the competition and get back to our kids, each kid, the individual. As parents, we do it every day. We adjust our expectations to meet our kids' needs.
Do you feel like your kids are learning more about competition in school than anything?
Image via albertogp123/Flickr
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Comments 10
I don't feel that way, at all, because my kids go to one of the best public school districts in Texas. The homework my kids bring home is rigorous, there is a lot of higher-order thinking evident, and the tests in each subject are so demanding that the state's standardized tests are a cakewalk. TAKS time is a joke for my kids - it's a week to catch up on their library books. The new requirements for the end of course exams that are rolling in starting this year are more rigorous than what the state previously required, but they will still be an afterthought. GOOD teachers still teach the content, everywhere - just because there was one bad batch up in Atlanta doesn't mean the system is completely broken. Teachers still care that the kids learn how to learn.
Standardized tests do not gauge what a student learns.
NCLB is a horrible piece of policy. It's screwed teachers and children. It's forced teachers to teach the test rather than actually teaching our children the knowledge they need. It's so strict, there's no wiggle room and many gifted children are being left behind because the tests have limited what is taught and therefore what they can explore. It hurts far more kids than it helps and prevents teachers from doing their job.
Dr. Beverly L. Hall
Superintendent, Atlanta Public Schools
@Connie, I take great issue with your "Teach for America" stance. What those undertrained, cheap, individuals do is take jobs from highly trained and dedicated teachers. Districts like to hire them because they work for next to nothing. The problem with this is they only stick around for a couple of years and if you know anything about struggling students, they need consistency as do the schools themselves. I will not hire anyone in my department from this program.
I don't think they're learning about competitino, but they do learn that those scores are important...and even then they don't care.