I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.

How far does this statement really take us?

Although I am a little out of the loop and tend to receive news a few days or weeks after it happens, the Save Our Schools march led in Washington a few days ago led me to do a little research on what is happening this summer with education in America.

I watched this video of Matt Damon and was empowered by his words to the teachers of our great nation. I am happy to know there are "millions of ordinary people" supporting teachers.




The Save Our Schools march was held a few days ago as a protest on Washington to give control of public schools back to the public.

I also recently read about Atlanta's cheating scandal which really comes as no shock to me. I believe that as long as testing determines a state's, city's, school's, teacher's, student's success... there will always be some form of cheating. I would like to know when in life it is accepted to evaluate someone's performance by having them bubble in a sheet of paper. I thought learning was supposed to be shown through action, motion, application. How is it possible to apply knowledge by coloring in a bubble on an answer sheet? Furthermore, I would like to know which of the writers and supporters of standardized testing were ever actually bubble-tested themselves.

Matt Damon got it right when he said the past decade has been a bad one for teachers. With the passage of No Child Left Behind the federal government made sure to promote the ideology of teaching to the test. And now with Race To the Top, America's education is being run more businesslike than ever. There are too many hands in public education right now which do not belong. People who have never taught a day in their lives are making decisions for the future of our country which they have no right to make.

I understand that it is obviously easier said than done, but America is headed down a slippery slope and with the rising bubble-test generation of leaders, I am not so sure we will come out on top. America's public education is supposed to create democratic citizens and responsible leaders for tomorrow. Instead, we are running schools like offices. We are promoting business executives to fund charter schools and saying that there is money to be made at the expense of a few local schools losing funding. Teachers are given monetary incentives to ensure passing percentages on standardized tests. Students are carrying the burden built by a failing bureaucracy.

I do believe in accountability in your profession. I believe in meeting standards and accomplishing goals. I believe in incentives, rewards, positive feedback, negative reinforcements for a wrongdoing. I do think their should be consequences when a teacher is no longer doing their job to the best of their abilities. I do think students should receive remediation when falling behind. I do believe we live in a world of great competitors and that we should strive for our nation to be the best.

I do not believe we should meet these expectations by closing schools, firing hundreds of teachers, creating more tests, or punishing children who have been wronged by the system. Why shouldn't we move to a method of testing which encompasses the whole child instead of just part? Portfolio-based testing could provide evidence of a child's abilities and would show the improvement made throughout the year, could focus more solely on the areas in which the child needs to work on, and would give us a better picture of the child's abilities. I am not going to get into the details of other modes of accountability. I am, however, going to say that the way we are grinding our students and our educators today is not working.

The public schools in America are supposed to help raise generations of children with firm ideals in democracy, freedom, independence, and citizenship. I am learning from living in a country that does not promote these beliefs in any way, that America is a country of great value to the world and we are lucky to call ourselves Americans. Why do we drill and test students so harshly in a country that was founded by free-thinkers? I am seeing that education in America and education in China may have more in common than I originally thought. The difference is that education in America is supposed to produce creative citizens in a free world and education in China is supposed to produce pawns in a government-controlled society.

Something to think about.

Mandarin lesson:
Kàngyì 抗议 (protest)