No Child Left Untested

It is a time when reports that students’ reading skills are actually going down as a result of teaching to the test are appearing in the news. Apparently, because educators are required to spend so much time preparing for whatever State-mandated test meets the “No Child Left Behind” criteria, they are neglecting readings in Social Studies or Science – non-fiction writing that exposes children to a variety of different styles and vocabulary. Because of this, students’ overall reading ability has decreased, with little regard to race or income level. Well, duh.

What’s worse, however, is the incredible pressure felt by the teachers, placed on them by the district. When I suggested taking my son out of the Connecticut Mastery testing this week, because of his math learning disability, his teacher jokingly (sort of) asked if I could take all of the low score achieving students out, so the school would get more money. The principal told me, very proudly, about how much prep the school has done, and how great it is because they should be able to do a bit better (so, read get more government dollars).

The Bush administration said it wanted to “shake up” teachers to get the poorly performing schools to do better, as though the only reason these schools had such pitiful scores was because the teachers were slackers. Well, the teachers are shook up, to be sure, but to what end? The result is a poorly formed curriculu, restricted by nine weeks of test review and preparation.

The biggest problem, however, is how No Child Left Behind has shaken up the students. Perhaps not the goal of the administration, but a very real artifact of all this testing, is that students are experiencing a tremendous increase in emotional problems relating to the stress. My own children were too sick to eat breakfast on the first day of the week of testing, but that’s minimal compared with the stories of complete breakdowns by their classmates that they’ve reported. This isn’t just a little nervous crying (which would be bad enough, really), but full blown fits of hysteria related to the stress they’re undergoing – the very real pressure they experience to achieve on the tests so their school gets funding. Gee, Billy, we can’t have Art anymore, because you did badly on the math test . . . but then again, who needs Art, since it doesn’t help your reading or arithmetic skills.

At every public school in Connecticut, children are taking one or two Mastery Tests this week. Although the State of Connecticut is suing the federal government (yay, us) for mandating the testing without funding it, they haven’t stood up to Bush and the host of Secretaries of Education appointed during his tenure, and said No to the testing itself (boo).

As recent studies indicate, it is clear that this testing is detrimental to the children’s skills. Now it would be interesting to see some studies on what putting all this pointless pressure on students is doing to their social and emotional makeup.

Baby Steps

The day I learned to walk was like any other day. I was wearing itchy cotton tights. Maybe they had splinters in them, picked up from crawling upon our wood floors. At any rate, they were uncomfortable, and they twisted around my legs as I scooted around.

I stood, not without trepidation, in the living room. My mother had her hands on the back of my shoulders and gave me a little push in the direction of my great-grandmother who was sitting on the brown couch under the diamond-paned windows. “Walk to Ganny,” she said in a sing-song voice. I did not want to walk to Ganny. I was afraid of Ganny. I came by this fear honestly – it had been passed on by my mother and grandmother who were both also afraid of Ganny. The consequences of not walking to Ganny were worse than doing so, however.

I wanted to just stand there and gaze at the dust particles illuminated in the autumn afternoon sunlight, pirouetting in the air. Highlighted by cigarette smoke, they twirled and danced, mesmerizing me not just then, but every time we sat in the living room in the afternoon, maybe during a holiday when I was hoping no one would notice I had eaten the entire bowl of black olives.

My mother gave me another nudge. “Walk to Ganny,” she said again, like maybe I hadn’t heard her or might actually consider facing the contempt my great-grandmother would express about my inability to complete this trivial task.

I walked to Ganny.

Up went the hands of both women at either end of the room with a “hooray” and a “mazeltov”. I smiled while Ganny threw her arms around me. I didn’t like being hugged by her, but it was better than being slapped. I experienced a crushing sense of relief. I was almost 17 months old. I wouldn’t have to listen to the grownups talking about how there must be something wrong with me, as if I couldn’t hear or understand them.

For years afterward, Ganny took credit for teaching me how to walk. And in a way, she did.