Into today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, the article “Long road to school sanctions” underscored the dilemma that this country is in with regard to the education of youth. Instead of educating youth, enormous resources have been and continue being spent of mandated testing, and then the holding of schools and districts hostage—before and after the results are reported. For example in the Atlanta area, where there are about 4 million+ citizens, 7 of the metro-Atlanta school districts were told “Yawl need improvement!” The list included Atlanta, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Hall, Marietta City, & Rockdale. Seems that some of the kids in some of the schools flunked parts of the big test, and now those districts are on THE LIST. If they stay on THE LIST for four years, there is big trouble for the educators in those districts. The state could come in (with whom or what?) and replace administrators, and re-train the teachers and do whatever they think will get those kids to pass THE TEST. That should really do it.

And what do the employees at the State Department of Education in Georgia spend their time doing? Well, they pour over the reams of data that they have generated. They do this from the “Twin Towers” in downtown Atlanta, and then kind of look out over the landscape far from the reality of schools, teachers, administrators and students, and make the dumbest decisions.

They really don’t have a clue about how to improve schools. They focus instead on developing tests that “measure” trivial information. Then then use scores that students generate on these trivial tests, and assume that they are really getting at what students know, what they learned, and how teachers are doing. It’s a mess. We’ve put ourselves in the mess but letting the locus of control of schools move to Washington (for the No Child Left Behind Program) or Atlanta in the case of Georgia. It’s not any different in any state.

Unfortunately the momentum for the national testing and hostage taking took place during the time when educators (classroom teachers) began to develop more powerful and innovative ways to assess student learning—portfolios, self-assessments, journals, group/cooperative learning projects, inquiry-oriented problem solving, debating, and host of other tools that help us know about student learning. Teachers know what is happening in their classrooms. They have a professional ability to assess their students, and provide the kind of assistance that will help students. National and state testing does none of these things. It probably creates great anxiety, and stamps out authenticity and innovation in teaching and learning. The school districts would do quite well if the state and federal officials would get out their way. It the state and “No Child Left Behind” that needs improvement.

That is what is happening in Georgia. What’s happening where you live and work?