Testing will make it so

Folks I am upset again. Schools across our nation will be giving daylong tests to see if our children are getting educated. Regular readers of this column know that I do not believe that this is going to prove we are or are not educating our youth. Perhaps, just perhaps what it may prove is if they are good test takers or not. I believe that education is much more than that.

I also realize that teachers and administrators are forced to give these tests because it is the law. Also if the tests scores do not show improvement, the school system is punished monetarily, the system will be chastised and heads may roll. Teachers spend a lot of class time, and sometimes after school, teaching for these tests. On test days children spend hours poring over these questions. Those children who have problems with taking tests know that if they do not do well they will be held back. The pressure on students is tremendous.

Let us think for a moment concerning the attention span of the students. Hours reading and answering questions seems a tad too long to me. In fact how long is your and my attention span? Yet there they sit hour after hour and for many of them hating every minute of it.

Is this testing program improving the education of our youth?

It depends on who you listen to. Many politicians and developers of this program say yes. However what I hear from top educators is just the opposite. They say that on the federal level it is failing miserably. Guess who I believe. I hear that across this great nation of ours fifty or more percent of our minority students drop out and do not finish high school. Why is this happening? There are certainly many different reasons. I wonder how many drop out because they choose not to face failure every day. Think for a moment. Think. How long would you or I attend an organization where we face failure every day and have others laugh at us and put us down? Not too long I imagine. That is one reason why it is vital to have good and caring people in all phases of our educational system. Education is about people; it is not about things!

For a long time now, in my opinion, we have been setting goals and standards that are not realistic for a lot of students.

We have D and F students, in our academic system, who if they had the privilege of attending a vocational school and attending courses in parenting, mechanics, machine shop, cosmetology, horticultural, barbering, plumbing, printing, consumer economics, practical business, carpentry, nursing or any other vocational course. Some, if not all, of these courses could be offered as night courses for those adults who want to acquire new skills or enter a new profession.

I was happy to learn that the schools in our county are providing enrichment opportunities for our academic talented students. Be that as it may we need to provide more and better opportunities for students with other gifts and interests.

In my opinion it is past time for our government and our educational leaders to not only provide for more scholarships and opportunities for our brightest academic students, but also to provide better opportunities for all students regardless of their abilities.

Will this solve all the problems? Of course not! In the near future the job market and the skills needed will be changing drastically. Our educational system must adjust and be leaders in this changing world! It behooves us all to give this some thought! Start with the parents, then the educational system all the way from the elementary through college and beyond. It gets more challenging every day!

Folks let me say it again and with feeling — education is about people – it is not about things!

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