Under the Bush administration, education has become a “hot button” issue for politicians, educators, community activists, and school districts.  Although schools had problems and room for improvement before President Bush’s tenure in office, one of his policies has  escalated the problem.  What is this policy? It is called the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB)  policy.  NCLB has set unbalanced testing standards, ineffective incentive programs, and taken the emphasis away from true teaching by forcing educators to be more focused on statistics.  What is the basic premise of NCLB? The philosophy of this program centers around the belief that increasing requirements for standardized tests will cause a trickle down effect…it is suppose to cause teachers to work harder and students to learn more because of this big test at the end of the year.  Oh, I forgot to mention, it also includes money for the teachers if they have the right percentage of students pass the test.

Are schools more focused on standardized tests than teaching? They are.  When the President of the United States demands statistic based results, it does cause a trickle down effect…not the one he expected. School Boards are pressuring Superintendents for numbers, Superintendents are pressuring principals, principals are pressuring teachers, and teachers are cheating. The X factor is the big pay day that trickles up. The better the teachers’ test results are, the more money all of their bosses get. The amount of money increases as you climb the ladder. It is not about education, it is about money. The test results are not credible, teachers spend the whole year teaching it, and we end up with students that are about to graduate and can not spell their name.

What is the solution? Education should not be based on standardized testing scores at all. If it is, teachers should not be paid for the success rate of thier students. It creates temptation to “fudge”numbers for a big payday. You want to give an incentive, pay them more! The only measure of success in the classroom should be the improvement of the students from the beginning of the school year to the end.  Education must go back to its simplest form….teaching.