As a result of the failed attempts of No Child Left Behind, schools that have been given waivers are to focus on college and career readiness which should have been the focus to begin with since, after all, that is why we teach. However, the stigma of student achievement has been taken away from the school districts as a whole and has been attached to individual teachers which is utterly unfair and counterproductive. And we are still back to the original issue: too much testing. There should be multiple measures of improvement taken into account rather than one standardized test. It is unfair to the teacher and it is unfair to the student. It seems as though no one has students’ best interest in mind; after all, it is about getting students to pass one, unfortunate, irrelevant test year after year that proves who is a good test taker and who is not.

That word is public policy stuff. Anyone who uses it is sitting in an office far from public education at the state or federal level or in some public policy think tank. In fact, using that word may be the ONLY productive thing they do that day.

Why should I tell them that they are off message and not connecting with parents? I want them to go away and leave math and science alone.

I was concerned in watching a recent Reason magazine video clip in which an inner city charter school supporter for Chicago said that the school choice movement was “off message” with parents. Why give them bullets for a gun that they cannot aim?

The “tensile strength of the political system”? What is that supposed to mean? It is sloganeering. Parents DO NOT WANT IT. Now, if I were a conservative I would claim government intrusion. If I were a liberal I would claim that it violates civil rights.

The ONLY defenders of this kind of testing are the MASSIVE MONOPOLIES that make hundreds of millions of dollars per year if not billions on NCLB. Entire careers are built on this junk.

Imagine in 10 years we will have a president who will end mandatory national testing “as we know it”. Parents are NOT convinced that testing is good for their child. Mr. R, your side simply has NOT convinced them that repeated testing and data gathering is education and is good for their child.

Why, forty years ago there was no testing and the schools were better and the streets were safer and mom stayed at home and the family went to church and the freeways were not crowded and there was no poverty and gas was cheap. Everything was better back then. What has happened to us? Why are we testing so much?

Whoops. There I go with that forty years ago dream. I sound like a conservative.

On one hand, we don’t want to be judgmental and return to the days where teen mothers were ostracized and kicked out of school, etc. On the other hand, let’s not glamorize the choice to have children when you can’t support them or raise them well.