It was mid-January and it was my turn to sit down with my stepdaughter's teacher's to discuss her strengths, weaknesses and progress for the first half of the year. I was actually quite excited about the process because she, my stepdaughter, didn't speak English at the beginning of the year and certainly that was a major hurdle to get over in order to learn (in English)

So, I sit down with her homeroom teacher who doubles as her math teacher. I ask "how is 'she' doing?" To paraphrase, he said she's doing well and progressing as she learns English, BUT we need to get her skills to the point where "she scores well on the state test." I asked why that was so important and he said because state funding is dependent on the overall score of the school. I kept trying to steer the conversation to her overall progress in math and he kept steering the conversation back to getting her to score at least a "3" on her test. I asked if he teaches concepts or theory and he said he wish he could, but he needs to prepare the kids for "the test."

Next walks in the Social Studies teacher and Science teacher (same person). I said, "How is 'she' doing"? To paraphrase, well we were shocked because she never had any social studies (essentially American History) in her previous years of education (she is from Europe) and she scored a "3" on the standardized test. I asked her, is that how you guys gage a student's progress? Well, she says, it's how the state does so I guess I'd have to answer yes. Now there is no standardized science exam this year so I asked how 'she' is doing in Science and we had a 20 minute conversation about how she's learning scientific theory, doing experiments, getting very involved in class. We talked about all things learning is about.

Next walks in the ESL teacher (English as a Second Language). I said, again, How is 'she' doing? She is doing well she says. Her English is much improved and we're excited because we think she will do well on the Language Arts test. I asked if that was a state test and of course we all know the answer.

So, now I'm sitting with all three teachers and I ask on simple question. Is all you guys care about is how 'she' (and your other students) do on their standardized tests? Although each of them didn't agree with the system, they all answered YES. I asked why? Because it determines how WE (the teachers) are ranked and the school gets more money from the state if the scores are higher. I asked do

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