Education Reform and the American Education Culture

I think the main problem with ed. reform in America today is the fact that we are creating a framework based on standardized tests. There are so many things that can go wrong here. The standardized tests in America today tend to be culturally and linguistically biased. They only test in math, sciences, and reading, leaving out the arts and humanities, and children are taught how to simply memorize and recall. What ever happened to teaching our students how to be thoughtful and engaged participants in our society? How to critically analyze, problem solve, and use their creativity and imaginations? Not only do standardized tests fail to assess the bigger picture of student learning, but they are the very definition of high stakes. With programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, teachers and schools are being penalized and punished for low student achievement in standardized testing. The government will actually take away funding from schools where students achieved the worst…now tell me, how does that make sense at all? "Lets take away their funding so they can no longer afford the tools they need to help their students achieve better on our tests next year". If anything, we should look at the schools that are achieving the worst on testing and, instead of punishing and abandoning them, send as much aide to them as possible.

Another issue I have with reformers today is that their main goals are to get American students achieving the highest on standardized testing compared to other countries, and when other countries consistently achieve higher than America, we completely ignore why. This is teaching our students that it is not okay to work with others. Why don't we ask other countries how they are achieving such high scores and work with them on ways to implement their ideas in our curriculum? Why is it so important for America to come out on top? Students should learn how to collaborate with those around them, including those from other countries and it is time for ed. reformers to look at what is helping other countries succeed in education and start questioning the way we have our system set up today.

It is extremely frustrating that so many students are being set up to fail in American ed. reform today. Memorization and recall are not going to get you through life. It is time for reformers to wake up and realize the importance of problem solving and critical thinking skills in our students. As Ken Robinson states in his TED Talks above, it is so important to include the arts and humanities in our curriculum. It is important to treat our educators as professionals and listen to their ideas when it comes to reform (I mean, we are the ones in the actual classroom, right?) These are the things that are working for other countries. 

As future educators, it is up to us to fight for a real reform, and it is possible. As Ken Robinson so beautifully states,
"Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in America, and nothing grows there. Nothing grows there because it doesn't rain. Hence, Death Valley. In the winter of 2004, it rained in Death Valley. Seven inches of rain fell over a very short period. And in the spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon. The whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers for a while. What it proved is this: that Death Valley isn't dead. It's dormant. Right beneath the surface are these seeds of possibility waiting for the right conditions to come about, and with organic systems, if the conditions are right, life is inevitable. It happens all the time. You take an area, a school, a district, you change the conditions, give people a different sense of possibility, a different set of expectations, a broader range of opportunities, you cherish and value the relationships between teachers and learners, you offer people the discretion to be creative and to innovate in what they do, and schools that were once bereft spring to life."