Extra: In Respectful Response...

 With respect I would like to address the comment made in regard to the nature of testing and assessment.   Broad assessments given to school children here in the U.S. are, I believe, administered in good faith and with only the best of intentions, but, the process is flawed, and lacking in validity.  Both testing and assessment are methods by which educators hope to assess the retention of academic concepts in large numbers of students.  Of course we want to know how our students are progressing in school.  However, broad state and national tests administered to state and district run schools are an extremely expensive exercise in futility.  Furthermore, testing does not beget better learning... it is, at best,  a misguided attempt to assess/improve teaching.  In Finland for example, where high student achievement is making international headlines,  national testing in lower grades is voluntary and is only given to 10% of the students in a certain age cohort from one year to the next.  Therefore a majority of Finnish students do not encounter a standardized exam (National Matriculation Examination) until they have completed their upper-secondary education. Now, in returning discussion to the U.S.,  even more pin-pointed state generated tests, can only measure academics, which is a very small component of student success.  As we have learned through our studies, what schools teach and how it is taught is dictated in large part by culture.  Each state in our country (the U.S.) is proud to have its own culture.  With all states following their own agendas in regard to education, we end up with 50 "pictures" of education.  Even within each state, there tends to be wide variances in how concepts are taught, schools managed, and what resources are available.  The real crime, in my opinion, is that we have wealthy school districts and poor school districts.  If we continue to fund schools through taxation based upon local property values, we will never have equal funding for schools, and we will never have equal opportunity education in the U.S.  All one needs to do is sit in on classrooms in various states to understand the vast gap that exists from one state to another in regard to what is being taught, how it is being taught, and critically the resources available.  My teaching experiences, because they are so varied, have afforded me a unique perspective in regards to the vast educational differences that exist in this country.  From the Midwest in Indiana, to rural Wyoming, to inner city South Central Los Angeles, to Houston, Texas, and Northern New Mexico, the differences in techniques and available resources are vast!  Available resources have a huge impact on teacher salaries, and that tends to have an impact on who can afford to be a teacher, from one state to another.  When salaries from one state to another drop, teacher expectations and quality teacher ed. tend to drop, and unfortunately teaching quality often drops, and finally student outcomes drop.  Until we have equal education in the U.S., (and even within each state) administering a national or state assessment examine is pointless, causing extreme stress for districts that simply do not have the resources to create education systems that can provide "high quality" education.  What would happen if every child in the U.S. were entitled to the same amount of education dollars?  And what would happen if every teacher in the U.S. were expected to have the same high quality teacher training?  And what if every teacher in the U.S. received the same take home pay?  Presumably that would mean that very wealthy districts would have to function on less, and very poor districts could function on more.  And how would that change the national view of education, not to mention our national views about poverty and other societal issues which have a huge impact on learning and education?  Until we have equal education resources for all students, we are not going to have equal educational opportunities.  Therefore, we are not going to have equal student outcomes, and large state and national academic assessments (which are expensive) will do little more than point out the obvious educational gaps we have in the quality of education and learning from state to state and district to district, while tactfully ignoring the social conditions (whole child aspects) that impact education and student success on every level.  What was it Einstein said?  "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." (http://www.einstein-quotes.com/ThinkingKnowledge.html)  We have a high, well documented level of conscientious (understanding) about learning.  The way we educate our children needs to catch up.  It is time to put the science of what we know about learning into educational practice.