In fact, there is so much testing that teachers end up using a great deal of instructional time teaching kids to pass tests instead of teaching them to think. I know there needs to be some regulation but it’s getting out of hand.

A school has to make sure a certain percentage of the total students taking the tests meet the standards. Also, sub-groups, such as special education and minority students, are looked at to see what percentage of those students meet the standards. A certain percentage of all sub-groups have to take the test or the school fails to make Annual Yearly Progress or AYP. A school can fail to make AYP overall or in a subgroup.

I teach the standards and then go above and beyond…however, sometimes I feel as if my creativity as a teacher is being confined because of all the standards I must teach. Sometimes I wish I could teach the really cool stuff the standards ignore.

The big mistake of the education pundits is not understanding that poor teachers have content knowledge. Poor teachers lack classroom management skills. And in some schools, no one has the classroom managment skills to teach well in a community that does not support education.