Letter: Teaching to test protects adults

Long Island educators rallied in Washington to protest the testing virus that has completely overtaken our schools like a grade-B horror movie ["Standardized testing critics to rally," News, July 18]. The growing demand for educational accountability has administrators straining to produce measurably favorable results.

State tests have become the standard by which results are assessed, and taxes justified. The numerical scores are published annually in newspapers so that districts, schools and individual teachers can be evaluated and compared. It appears that the busy public has bought into this convenient ritual.

These highly scrutinized ratings have created an accountability pressure cooker. A trickle-down anxiety has permeated the schoolhouse, on down to the real victims: nervous students.

The problem is not the tests, which are challenging and well designed. The problem is the obsession with the tests. Instead of using tests as diagnostic tools to evaluate the quality of an educational program and to monitor individual student growth, we now teach lessons to maximize test scores.

The focal point of schooling has morphed from a broad and practical experience into a vehicle to pass tests. The thinking goes, "if it's not on the test, why waste time teaching it?" A play, a trip, a discussion, a debate, a book, or a project has low ranking in this scorecard.

The resulting inflated numbers don't make students brighter; they make educators look better. If a choice must be made, it appears that there is more concern in looking good than being good.

This practice is fashioned to appear to leave no child behind. In truth, it aims to leave no adult's behind unprotected.

Bruce Stasiuk, Setauket

Editor's note: The writer has 34 years of teaching experience in the public school system.