Why are we so focused on the test scores?

The API scores are out now. It seems these test scores have, of late, become the barometer of success-for schools and teachers. Parents pore over them to see which schools are at the top. People as far away as China use school test scores to decide where to live in America. Politicians are now using tests as a measure of educational accountability.

Why, I wonder, are we going in this direction? On the whole, U.S. K­12 schools have always been behind when compared to schools in other countries. I lived in England as a child in the 1950s. My father was in the U.S. Air Force. We knew the schools in England were way ahead of our schools. So most military brats like me simply went to American schools on the base, and American teachers taught us.

My question is this: If we've always been behind in our academics, why then have we been the most innovative and creative nation in the world? Why do people from all over the globe come to our colleges for a "better" education? Why do the best and the brightest of other nations want to live here to follow their dreams? There's something here that they want.

That something may not be measurable in tests. We accept failure as part of finding answers. We even encourage ourselves by saying things like "Babe Ruth, the great home run hitter, struck out hundreds more times than he hit home runs." It's so American to say, "think outside the box" or "push the envelope." Large corporations practice brainstorming, and they do it playfully because it's well known that creative answers come out of a mind freed of rules.

Testing, however, emphasizes knowing the "right" answers, which has to do with thinking inside the box. Sometime in the late 1980s, we started to turn more and more toward multiple mandated tests as a measure of a school's success. The politicians call it accountability. And it seems the rubric is "one size fits all." These days, especially with the No Child Left Behind mandate, there's no allowing for variables-language barriers, a child's transient life, aptitude, talent or learning style.

In some countries children as young as 12 take tests to decide whether they will go to vocational school or follow an academic path to college. We've always allowed for late bloomers; we offer second, third and more chances. We have many community colleges that offer a way for anyone to get an education. The very thing that has made our country so innovative and creative may not be quantifiable. Even Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

How does one test imagination or creativity? And how do we know when that will kick in for a student? It's a very individual thing, something creative and caring teachers work hard for.

I heard a radio interview recently that alluded to differences between American students and those from other countries. A teacher had been involved in a project with an international group of high school students. The teacher said the students from other countries were polite, on time, focused, did what he asked and helped the whole group come up with a great project. American students were consistently late and not particularly focused. But, he said, when he gave the group a task to write a certain kind of song, the American students jumped at it and finished.

The international students, on the other hand, said they couldn't do it. They said they'd never learned to write that kind of song. He said they shrunk at the challenge. Simply put, they couldn't think outside of the box. In our recent article on No Child Left Behind, I was amazed to read what a kindergarten teacher said about children who'd been in highly focused preschools. She said they became frustrated easily about simple things like zipping up their own jackets-but they could read. Somewhere along the line, we have to decide what we value.

Please don't misunderstand me: self-discipline and knowledge are critical. Surely we want respectful students who get to class on time. We all count that as a virtue. And hopefully our students absorb lots of knowledge along the way. And certainly testing isn't a bad thing, if only it forces us to sit down and study. But today, students are tested over and over. Schools are threatened with being closed if they don't measure up, regardless of the variation in student populations.

If our measure of success is only how our students and schools score on these tests, we may kill that spirit of creativity and innovation-in teachers and in students. Not only that, it seems our high-achieving students who are desperate to measure up to "standards" are simply burned out by the time they get to college.

Cupertino Courier