Introduction

How much of what students are learning in school today applies to everyday life skills for future success?

 

Students, especially in urban areas like Newark, are not getting the education needed to become competent and successful members of society. The matter of changing school and curriculum (educational reform) to compensate for the rapidly changing world in which these schools and it student’s exist has been an ongoing battle of both failure and success in particularly urban areas. Most of the students in and around the area of Hawthorne Avenue in Newark come from lower income, working class families that are just barely making ends meet. Many of the parent(s) in these families have low educational backgrounds and this lower education is correlated to the lower income status that they presently possess. President George Bush, in an effort to raise failing schools classified by students who are falling behind, in primarily urban areas, proposed No Child Left Behind; a series of standardized tests and guidelines for meeting an Annual Yearly Percentage (AYP) or the school in concern receives less funding or ultimately is closed down. President Bush did not account for the diversity in which students and their families come from. Diversity in many contexts such as: locale, socio-economic class, race, ethnicity, gender, family structure, disabilities, etc. and most importantly, that all students learn, retain, and recall information differently. This idea of standardizing curriculum and learning goes against nature; fundamentally, it defies our societal structure. There needs to be more than one solution to assessing schools and its students and this concept of more than one answer is a vital component educators should be instilling in students today.

Standardized testing seems to be the “solve-all” solution and there is evidence to support its prosperity and its failure. Both prosperity and failure are limited to the view of test scores. Students are not being assessed in the many ways they learn limiting the validity in the assessment of the student’s learned knowledge. In addition, the curriculum and teaching styles of educators is changing due to high-stakes testing. Educators are now teaching to the test, which in turn invalidates their reliability and validity. As a result, students are being assessed on how much test content and information they can memorize in regard to passing the test instead of assessing the depth of understanding and reasoning, along with the critical thinking that goes into making the decisions (their answers). School shouldn’t be solely about passing tests, they should concentrate, enhance, and order the knowledge that the students have learned and can use sufficiently in the world to contribute to society and use for the next steps in life. With the curriculum emphasized on teaching towards the test, these critical life skills of reasoning, decision making, critical thinking, life long learning, and etc. either aren’t being taught at all or in very limited doses. Standardized tests aren’t providing the students with the skills needed, not only for school but also, after graduation, in the work place, and in life. Many of the students coming from urban areas do not pursue further education and join the work force directly after graduation. The Secretary’s Commission of Necessary Skills released a set of competencies and foundations that are needed of schools for use in the workforce. These skills are the foundation of a competent and successful member of society. Skills such as literacy, mathematical reasoning, collaboration, critical thinking, lifelong learning, and many more will help a student to success in any facet of life. In a world that is undergoing many rapid changes of globalization, it is important for one to understand how to work with others and make intelligent decisions. It also requires more cognitive demand on students who need to be able to think creatively, out side of the box, and understand the choices they make ultimately create a path. Students are not being taught how to think, they are being taught what to think due to standardized tests that only have one correct answer. Teaching our students that there is always more than one solution and how to learn building upon their strengths will help them more in future ventures than filling in the correct bubble in number 2 pencil; a method proven to be forgotten of regurgitated useless information not connected to real life use and experiences.                                        Unfortunately, educators are not preparing students with these necessary skills due to the pressures of teaching to the test. It is these students in the low income, low performing schools that are ultimately being set up for failure and the continuance of this connection of low education leading to low socio-economic status. The concept of standardized testing is not only found within the United States. The techniques of teaching curriculum and providing assessment in countries such as Belgium and Sweden are much different. Students in these countries out perform the United States on Math and Science high-stakes tests and have higher success rates. The curriculum across seas is much more specialized, leaving out forgettable details and focusing on the truly important issues. Also, assessment is much broader than in the United States. Across seas, standardized testing is not the only means of assessment. Other countries use portfolio and performance based testing, (along with others) that can be used in juncture with standardized testing, but gives students the ability to show what they are capable of, how they reason, make decisions, and grow based on their natural talents and interests. School reform is not a new issue; it has been talked about for years and slowly little steps are being taken. There will never be one answer that fits all; education and the world are rapidly ever changing.