Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen on our misdirected obsession with testing:
And what does this metastasizing testing, for every subject, at every level, at every time of the year, do to kids? It has to mean that students absorb the message that learning is a joyless succession of hoops through which they must jump, rather than a way of understanding and mastering the world. Every question has one right answer; the measure of a person is a number. Being insightful, or creative, or, heaven forfend, counterintuitive counts for nothing. This is: (a) benighted; (b) ridiculous; (c) sad; (d) all of the above.
You know the answer.
Of course it is important to know that all students have learned to read, that everyone can manage multiplication. But constant testing will no more address the problems with our education system than constantly putting an overweight person on the scale will cure obesity. Proponents trumpet the end to social promotion. They are less outspoken about what comes next, about what provisions are to be made for a student who is held back twice and then drops out of school. The bureaucrats who have built their programs on test results seem to have lost sight of any overarching point of education. Who cares if the light comes on in their eyes if the numbers are good?
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