Testing Factories

After doing the reading for this week many topics became "Golden Nuggets" for me. After being a teacher for 16 years, 8 of which were at the fourth grade level, Jonassen, Howland, Marra, and Crismond state that, "Schools in America have become testing factories. Federal legislation has mandated continuous testing of K-12 students in order to make schools and students more accountable for their learning." I have truly felt these pressures from administrators and realize how much pressure classroom teachers are under in order to receive a passing school report card. I agree that students need to be willfully engaged in a meaning task in order for them to learn but this task does not always take place in the school setting.