April 5th: What Practice, Tradition, Instructional Strategy or Anything Else "Must Die".

What practice, tradition, instructional strategy or anything else "must die." What needs to stop in order for Education to move forward. 

We need to stop any practice, tradition or strategy that lacks logic.  We are a society that is obsessed with concrete data, but the truth is learning is not black and white.  In my opinion, if standardized tests are a true reflection of learning than students who earn A's on classwork should do well on the tests and students who earn C's or lower should struggle on the tests.  If this is the case, why do we need to waste weeks testing students to see results we expect to see?

I see far more negatives to testing than any positives.  We are spending valuable class time on test prep and test taking.  This takes away from specials time, recess and instructional time.  My other issue with standardized testing is that results from these tests do not come back until the following semester.

In order to move education forward, we need to focus on creating life long learners and not test takers.  Learning should be fun, school should be fun.  The ability to learn and the motivation to learn is vital to future success.