For those who know and understand education, you know that rigid, standardized tests at the younger ages are almost always a horrible idea.  You know further that the administrating authorities have been manipulating the test scores over the past decade using a variety of techniques (Easier questions, changed scoring rubrics, etc...) to create the appearance that children are learning more than before.  In reality, children today are learning less with each passing year because of this teach to the test curriculum.

Teach to the test curricula is for robots not educators.  It's about a bunch of lousy administrators, lousy teachers, and the testing companies that profit from this scam creating scripts, coordinators, and so called programs to fleece the students.  For each moment in class wasted on deciding how to eliminate two choices or figuring out which answer to guess of the remaining two is one less moment spent on hands on learning, concepts, content, research, interactive learning, gym, music, art, technology, and other necessary areas of education that our children are being deprived of.

For those who know and understand education, you know that these tests are a flawed assessment of teachers and schools.  Kids at younger ages does always learn in gradual increments.  Thus, teacher A may have planted seeds that sprouted two years later while teacher B looks good.  Or teacher C gets all the behavioral problems shoved into her room and scores go down just so 5 other classes don't have to deal with disruptions as frequently.  Or teacher D takes 25 kids 2 grades below grade level, gets them within half a grade by the end of the year but the test scores still are deemed subpar despite the fantastic teaching job.  Or teacher E has a student going through a personal tragedy that prevent student from focusing for that year.  Teacher F may have inherited 4 kids midyear from other schools who were way below grade level. 

This leads me to one of my favorite all time teaching moments.  I decided, when introducing statistics to a 5th grade group years ago to give them a "test."  I told them they would get 1 minute to take the test, it would be one question, you get either an A or an F.  So I put on the board something that would take about 25 minutes to complete with sophisticated multiplication, division, exponents, etc.... and said, "Go ahead."  It was intriguing to watch as I saw the kids who just stared and did nothing, the kids who tried for 30 seconds and gave up, the kids who got to the 50 second mark, and then the 3-4 who wouldn't stop working until time was up.  Of course nobody could solve this problem in one minute so I said they all got Zeros.  The complaining started and I played dumb.  I played along for a couple of minutes until I asked them if they wanted a new test.  They said Yes.  I told them that before I do that I want to show you something.  I pointed to the addition sign and in a sarcastic voice said something like this, "See this is a plus sign, you add with it." 

I then gave them a new question and said they would get one minute.  The question was 2 + 2 = _____.

Of course everyone got the right answer and got a "100."  So I asked them, "What does this prove?"  After soliciting a couple of answers I told them I know what it proves.  Curious as they were I told them, "This proves that I am the greatest math teacher in the history of civilization. I am the best."  Of course they questioned my immodest boasting and wanted to know why.  I told them, "See what I have done, it just 2 minutes I took a whole class of students and improved their math test scores by 100 percentage points.  Has there ever been another teacher who has done that?"

And they got the point.  They'll never forget it.