Every week I volunteer at an inner city organization tutoring children. Many of the kids I work who have math and reading skills well below grade level are stressed out to distraction because they are unsure if they will pass their EOGs and move up to the next grade level. The state of education in this country (ESPECIALLY for lower income/inner city youth) is simply depressing.

Clearly “No Child Left Behind” is not an effective program to help mend the educational disparities felt by lower-income schools. Focusing so heavily on end of the year testing only hurts the students, because teachers are put in the position of “teaching the test” rather than making sure the students have a deeper understanding of the subject matter. In addition, using standardized testing as the only gauge for a students learning capability ignores the fact that different people learn and excel in different ways. The “punishment” system is also not effective in assisting poorly performing schools because in the end it just hurts the students. Instead of pushing students who “don’t make the grade” out of schools (or letting them slip through the cracks) poorly performing schools should get more funding for tutoring (for everyone not just kids who qualify for free lunches), after school programing and hiring highly qualified teachers.

What is the solution? To me it would be to de-institutionalize education, and focus on the students as individuals human beings rather than points on a graph of a schools achievement. We need to give the power back to the teachers and trust them to know what is best for their individual students rather than focusing on such narrow testing methods.