I think it's necessary to draw a distinction between book-learning, standardized tests as a means to test book learning and the absolute focus on standardized tests that followed the NCLB Act.
Book learning is indeed essential. But standardized tests are far from a necessary component of that. They just happen to be the cheapest/least-offensive devil-we-know for judging whether a student comprehends a passage.
And the alternatives to standardized tests are far from a panacea. For all their desirable traits, they suffer heavily from problems of subjectivity and bias.
But the emphasis on standardized tests, particularly as a follow-on from NCLB is something the country really needs to re-examine and discuss. And this discussion should (ideally) be utterly divorced from whether we need book-learning and even from whether we need standardized tests in some capacity.
Complaints about NCLB and what it's done to our schools and students need not be an assault on testing and book learning. And defenses of testing and book learning need not be defenses of NCLB and its effects.
The emphasis on tests, yes, that is a problem. I agree with you. But of course people see something used poorly and want to get rid of it completely. This happens in many areas, but perhaps nowhere worse than in public education. The trends over the years are a wild backlash from one side to the other over and over, with the system invariably throwing the baby out with the bathwater on each cycle.
Over and over in education debates I see false dichotomies posed without the slightest hesitation, and people passionately argue whether we should do A xor B. But in almost all such debates the correct answer seems to me not to take one side, but to find the proper balance between the two.
Book learning is indeed essential. But standardized tests are far from a necessary component of that. They just happen to be the cheapest/least-offensive devil-we-know for judging whether a student comprehends a passage.
And the alternatives to standardized tests are far from a panacea. For all their desirable traits, they suffer heavily from problems of subjectivity and bias.
But the emphasis on standardized tests, particularly as a follow-on from NCLB is something the country really needs to re-examine and discuss. And this discussion should (ideally) be utterly divorced from whether we need book-learning and even from whether we need standardized tests in some capacity.
Complaints about NCLB and what it's done to our schools and students need not be an assault on testing and book learning. And defenses of testing and book learning need not be defenses of NCLB and its effects.