Progressive + Dynamic
Our education system needs to grow and adapt to a changing world and provide the children with a fertile learning experience. Focus needs to move from testing to nurturing student’s strengths with challenging and dynamic content while addressing issues with more individualistic and bolstering support systems. One size fits all solutions may have been an option in the past, but as with all antiquated systems, change is necessary. The decentralized structure of the American education system is vastly different state by state, country by county and especially neighborhood by neighborhood.
It is necessary to change the way our school system handles marginalized youth in the classroom. We need to find a dynamic way to increase the literacy of the least fortunate portion of our communities. The goal of education is to promote the well-being of youth, to help youth flourish, and to promote equity within the educational system. The way it is now, standardized testing does not fulfill these goals. Whether by removing the “high-stakes” aspect of the standardized testing by creating dynamic tests for different levels of literacy or by moving into more varied styles of assessment and by developing more local curriculum that helps meet the diverse needs of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Overall, we must consider the impact of high-stakes standardized literacy testing policy on those who fail, because literacy and education is meant for all regardless of how well you do on a test.
It is necessary to change the way our school system handles marginalized youth in the classroom. We need to find a dynamic way to increase the literacy of the least fortunate portion of our communities. The goal of education is to promote the well-being of youth, to help youth flourish, and to promote equity within the educational system. The way it is now, standardized testing does not fulfill these goals. Whether by removing the “high-stakes” aspect of the standardized testing by creating dynamic tests for different levels of literacy or by moving into more varied styles of assessment and by developing more local curriculum that helps meet the diverse needs of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Overall, we must consider the impact of high-stakes standardized literacy testing policy on those who fail, because literacy and education is meant for all regardless of how well you do on a test.