Testing for Intelligence

I am a firm believer that young children are being tested/pressured too much.  There should be a method to assess what children have learn but schools that focus on preparing children for the "test" and not preparing them for knowledge is not in the best interest of the child.  Education should be about preparing the whole child - cognitively, physically, and socially.  Because of the No Child Left Behind mandate, there is too much emphasis placed on performance and standardized testing. School systems and principals are pressuring teachers to make the children pass the standardized test to keep their jobs.  With this pressure on the elementary teachers, they are putting pressure on the preschool teachers to make sure that children can pass the test when they enter kindergarten.  Whereas most preschool curriculum are set up for children to learn at their developmental level (hands on), they philosophy does not work when they enter kindergarten.  All children must learn and pass the test at the same level and if they don't, they will be labeled with a disability.  In essence, I believe children should be measured on their developmental level and teachers should plan their lesson based on where a child is and set goals for them to achieve to the next level.  Teachers should get back to teaching and not production.

In Wales, Great Britain, they have decided to stop most standardized testing through age 14 and to replace testing 11 and 14 year old with teacher evaluations.  Wales is considered a high-stake-testing country. The Education Minister Jane Davidson, feels that "each student was just a statistic" and she "wanted to get teachers back to actually talking about how to acknowledge and recognize the talents of people and to support those talents".  Along with government guidance, teachers come up with their own assessments and report the results to parents, local education authorities, and the Welsh government each year.  I think this is something that the United States Secretary of Education need to watch closely to see the long term effects.

Reference:
Retrieved from the internet 12/10/10 Standardized Testing in England.  The National Center for Fair and Open Testing. Wales Drops Most Standardized Testing. Jan. 2007