As a third year teacher, I haven’t known any other education climate than one completely saturated by high-stakes testing, standards, NCLB, and the surrounding controversy.  So, knowing only one way, I have to tease out my stance and position in the abstract - what would it be like without standards and the high-stakes tests that measure whether or not they’ve effectively been taught?

 This issue is complex.  As a first year, alternative certification teacher I was more than grateful for a starting point - the standards for teaching writing.  I was also grateful, however, because in 2005-06 Kentucky did not test writing in the eighth grade.  That took some of the pressure off, and gave me a clear focus on where I could start my teaching.  I won’t say I was effective my first year, but without the standards I don’t think I would have known where to begin with my severely disadvantaged students.

 Although the state’s standards are a helpful starting point, high-stakes testing seems to shift the focus to the standards as the final, ending point.  This shift is dangerous, because it shifts teachers’ focus from teaching critical, independent thought to teaching students to regurgitate facts or perform measurable, testable skills.  Because it is challenging and messy to test a students’ thought processes, tests demand students demonstrate knowledge in simple skill sets, which leave no room creativity or differentiation.

High-stakes testing is particularly dangerous for writing, because writing in itself is a process.  The process of writing and its development are closely linked to the students’ independent thought process and ability to communicate that process clearly to an audience.  Analysis, logical categorization, deduction, creative expression, hightened awareness of detail, and problem solving are all strengthened through development of the writing process.  Effective writing instruction develops the cognitive process and will improve students’ performance in all subject areas.  In short, clear writing is clear thinking.

 What is lost when there is a sole focus on over-simplified, clearly measureable standards in writing instruction?  Some teachers may teach only isolated skills: formats, mechanics, key words or phrases, and abandon the development of writing as a process. 

 Don’t get me wrong: my students need standards.  They need a starting point like a model structure in which to write an essay.  But they also need the intellectual freedom and inspiration to move beyond such structures when they are ready to do so.

 Additionally, because writing is a process it should not be expected - cannot be expected - that all students will demonstrate comprehension of the same standard and the same time.  This is another problem with standards inherent in the very word: students’ learning processes can’t be standardized.  What one student learns in September another will learn in March.  What’s wrong with that so long as each student is improving, developing higher order thinking skills, learning to be independent thinkers and problem solvers?

We all know what’s wrong: it can’t be tested.  Differentiated development can’t be easily measured.  If it can’t be measured, how can we place blame, effectively threaten and punish teachers and schools for the failure of the US public education system?

I’ve heard Congressmen say that we need NCLB because no organization can police itself.  There is truth in that statement.  And I’m the first to acknowledge that our education system needs fixing.  The difference in ideology on how we fix this problem becomes clear, however, when we look at that Congressman’s following analogy: we have federal regulations on corporations, so why not schools?  Because in schools we’re not producing cogs or widgets or any sort of things that can be standardized in neat little boxes: we’re charged with developing minds, which are complex and messy and beautifully mysterious.

 One final point: let’s be careful how much we focus on raising standards and discouraging questioning.  Nazi Germany is an historic example from which we would benefit to learn.  Performance standards were dramatically raised in that society; what was discouraged was critical question and differentiation from the group.  Let’s shift our focus from standards as an end in themselves to learning as a process so that we don’t create a society of high-performing robots.