Thanks to the ilks of Jeb Bush and Bill Gates the United States has pushed our educational system and governmental entities have pushed the country to evaluate both our students and teachers on the basis of the results of standardized tests. They claim that the testing results are a clear picture of the success of our educational system.
I spent six years of my life in the classroom and having graduated under a system which did not put as much emphasis on testing I can tell you while the intent is well intended it misses a major outcome that we need in today's global workplace.
Consider two views of teaching. The first is the current system where the process of students and therefore the impact of the teaching effort is based on the content of the state standards and accompanying tests. The indirect result is that because there is so much emphasis on meeting the standards teachers are forced to establish their lesson plans around that content. I am not suggesting that there is a problem with setting standards for what should be taught in the classroom. I have a problem when the concentration is the test rather then the content.
Take the second view of teaching. This the view that was the norm up until the push for the standardized tests. My grandfather worked his way up through the business world to the level of CEO without basing that education on the test results. When I was attending school we had the opportunity to take the NYS Regents exam to judge our progress.
Here is my problem with the new world. I hear and read almost every day that companies are having a hard time finding employees who can function at a satisfactory level within the workplace. Why not? Because the direct result of the new system is the lack of critical thinking. The success of our organizations is not dependent on whether you passed some standardized test but rather your ability to think through problems. The ability to think through why the organization is undergoing issues is critical for the success of the economy and the organization. It is very disturbing when an educator tells me that if he taught Math the way he did when he started teaching 25 years ago he would be forced to fail all his students. This is what happens when we do not take the time to challenge the students to find solutions on their own using easily taught skills. This is what happens when the aim of the system is to meet the content of the test rther then life skills.
In order to ensure that we have a workforce that can meet the challenges of the future, we need to return to the time when the programs were designed to challenge the students to think through problems not by rote response to the issues. Our organizations, our economy, our survival and our innovation demands it. The future demands it if we are to be the powerhouse we claim to be.
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