George L. Bennett II (MAOM)

In 1975, 22% of college students majored in education, higher than any other major. By 2015, fewer than one in 10 students are pursuing education. & with a near 50% attrition every 5 years, we have to do a better job of supporting, valuing, & paying teachers

At what point did standardized testing take over education? Nearly two months of the school year now revolve around it. Every year teachers spend about 14 days preparing students for state tests and another 12 days preparing for district benchmark tests, according to reporting on teacher survey data from the Education Writers Association. That’s 26 days already. Then add the days students actually spend taking the tests. In many schools that’s another 5–10 days. Do the math. That means roughly two months of the school year are now dedicated to standardized testing. And it wasn’t always like this. By the time students graduate, they may have taken more than 100 standardized tests. Twenty years ago most students mainly took one major state test each year. For example, I think I took 2 standardized test in high school. At some point we have to be honest about what that means. Education is no longer primarily about learning. It has slowly become a system of collecting data on children. Standardized testing was supposed to measure learning. Instead, data collection has replaced education.

We don’t have a classroom management problem. We have an emotional regulation crisis that teachers are being asked to handle. Somehow, “classroom management” has turned into: • de-escalating trauma • supporting anxiety and depression • calming panic attacks • being the counselor, social worker, and crisis team • carrying emotional loads no one sees And then we remove the very things that help like recess, movement, art, play, connection. Teachers aren’t trained for that. They shouldn’t have to be. Classroom management is about relationships, structure, routines, and connection. It was never meant to replace what families, communities, and systems failed to provide. And until we stop offloading every societal failure onto schools, teachers will keep drowning under expectations no human can meet.

Finland studied U.S. schools in the 1970s. They loved our focus on play, the whole child, and teacher/ school control. So they built their system on it. We replaced it with tests. They kept the soul of education. We sold ours for standardized testing.