I have a growing frustration about our educational standards in the United States today. I’ve voiced some of my concerns in the past. Today the fires of my frustration have been refueled.

I don’t want to be misunderstood so I’m starting with a point that I want to make crystal clear. I am in complete support of the goal this legislation was created for. I too believe that our educators need to be held accountable for teaching and that our youth benefit from the best education possible. What I strongly disagree with are the methods the act uses. And here’s my primary reason why: Common sense, development and individual needs should be the paramount considerations. Currently, they are secondary - if regarded at all.

The entire premise as I see it on this legislation is an effort to ensure equalized and standardized enforcement of education practices. The result has been a numbers game and the students are suffering for it. Anytime you create a focus around an issue you create a system - a system that some will strive to find ways to work around. And anytime you make someone feel defensive, you can be guaranteed a lot of negative footwork, focus and results will follow.

The efforts, valiant as they may be, to standardize and equalize simply don’t work. We are a nation of individuals who thrive on personal liberty and freedoms. Therefore, even the concept of standardized testing breaks down at the level of administration because each state has jurisdiction over their state’s tests. Nothing equal or standard there. Further, when the focus is on test results we’re missing the mark. The focus should be on education and learning - in helping teachers be and feel successful so their students may do the same, not weigh them down with more paperwork, restrictions and tests. Every teacher I have talked to in the past four years has told me they don’t have time or even the freedom to teach anymore. They only have time to implement program after program to help increase test scores. We have replaced learning with coaching to test better. And here’s the kicker, the idea that we’re helping save those kids at risk with education just went out the window with the focus on testing. I personally know of a tutor who was shocked to learn that his job was going to be to work with the smartest kids at an inner city school, NOT those who really needed it because this was the way the school found they could most successfully and quickly meet the challenge of raising test scores. This means that children were indeed being left behind because of the very legislation that was put in place to protect them.

But the real fuel for my fire has been the continued lack of common sense and developmental issues surrounding schools today. Are our children really ready for the amount of information we’re throwing at them? Does it make sense? I have been asking myself these questions ever since my daughter embarked on first grade three years ago. I immediately noticed the different styles and techniques of teaching. It was so different from what I experienced. I remembered patterns and building on basics but I couldn’t find any definable patterns in what my daughter brought home at age six. Further, I was pretty sure I didn’t even see some of the same content until I was twice her age. That theory was confirmed last year when her third grade teacher told me that what I had to remember was what my daughter was being exposed to in third grade were concepts that she and I weren’t getting until easily fifth or sixth grade. I don’t hold a degree in brain development, but as a mother I can clearly see that there are lot of things my kids simply are not ready for yet and no matter how hard you push until they are you’re beating your head against a wall.

Today was the icing on the cake. His teacher confirmed my most recent suspicions upon reading the new “Level of Performance” guidelines for Kindergarten. She informed me that the new Kindergarten program this year is the equivalent of last year’s first grade program. My heart sank and I was left wondering where Kindergarten went. Indeed, where did the ability to just be a child go?

I feel that I’ve done everything that I should to help my children be prepared for their educational careers. I’ve been fortunate to be a stay at home mom for both of them their entire lives. We’ve incorporated basic learning with daily activities and play, they’ve been happy and secure. Knowing they weren’t being exposed to the classroom style structure and learning of their peers being raised in day cares, I enrolled both in preschool to help prepare them for the educational experience. In fact, the program my son went to last year mirrored that of the Kindergarten learning experience….at least the one I remember. He went every day in the afternoon for two and a half hours. He was exposed to learning his colors, recognizing his name, learning basic social skills and routines. The program was even at the public elementary school completing his exposure for environment that of the Kindergarten experience. I was so excited for him! He was better prepared for Kindergarten than both myself and his sister were. In fact, he qualified for our district’s “Innovative Kindergarten” program and has been in it for nine days now. But today I’ve learned how hard the transition has been on him because it is SO different from preschool. The challenge is compounded by the fact that this is a half day Kindergarten program, yet his teacher is expected to teach the same materials as those who have a full day so there is so much structure and so little time to be a kid. I don’t know how in the world she does it because it makes my stomach churn just thinking about that kind of pressure. It’s not just a jump from preschool to first grade material/expectations either because if you factor in my daughter’s experience of increased exposure to more and more that would put last year’s first grade program at the level of what I experienced in third grade! Preschool to third grade. Who came up with this brilliant idea/curriculum and to what end? Truly, it is harder and harder these days as a parent to keep school from interfering with your child’s education! I seriously have to counteract so much of what my kids get every day just to keep this in focus. That’s time and energy that would be much better spent on supporting a system that was worthy of supporting.

If we want to measure successful teaching, to truly find the great ones and identify those in need of help we need to start with the right process of identification - and standardized testing MOST DEFINITELY IS NOT IT. A good teacher helps each child be and feel successful no matter where their level of learning is by helping them continue to build and grow on that level. Until we get back to that focus we’re going to keep sacrificing our children to a system.

So I ask, when will enough be enough? When will we stop pushing more and higher learning standards to younger and younger children in an effort to make statistics look good on paper? What are we trying to prove and to whom? I for one will continue to speak out about this and I will never conform to the new “standards” they are pushing for my children. I will do all in my power to balance what they experience every day with common sense and reality and help them feel successful about the skills, qualities and lessons that matter most in life and not just high test scores on academia.

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