Come on, Georgia

Really? Has it come down to this, Georgia? Must we now fire many of our educators because of their last-ditch attempt to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)? Aren't we already hurting for enough teachers to fill classrooms and ensure that the student:teacher ratio is low enough? How flawed is a system in which the educators are so worried for the sake of their jobs, and the very children that we entrust to them, that they feel they must change students' answers (sacrificing their own integrity and apparently committing a felony in the process [falsifying a state document? Really? We're grouping someone who genuinely cares about our children into the same group as someone who perjured himself in an affidavit to a court]) on a standardized test (the CRCT, for those who know what I'm talking about) because our dear Department of Education will hold these students back (in 5th grade, mind you) because of the inability to meet performance goals on ONE STINKING TEST? Never mind what work they've done the entire school year; how well they did on in-class assignments, tests given by the teacher, and even simple classroom participation. One test, in the state of Georgia, can determine whether a student is promoted to the next grade level. This is not just a problem in the 5th grade, which is the level that has sparked much of the controversy recently, no, across the board, the pressure on students to perform adequately on one single test lest they remain in school another year is simply ridiculous. From the first grade until high school graduation, students must pass a variety of standardized tests to be able to continue in school. Not to mention the fact that these tests take away nearly a week of class time that could have been spent, I don't know, actually learning something, but the tests aren't even given at the end of the year, when a teacher might have had time to actually convey enough valuable information to a child that he is prepared for the next level of education. No, they're given about halfway through the spring semester of the public school term, with no less than 35 days remaining in school. That's 35 days worth of information that the student does not have in his tool set to aid him on a standardized test. 35 days. 35 days. 35 days. Or, take the GHSGT, Given in the middle of spring term of students' junior year of high school. A full year-plus of information that students don't possess. 200 days. 200 days. 200 DAYS, for crying out loud! How can we expect students to have all the information needed to graduate high school when we are testing them 200 DAYS in advance of their anticipated graduation date? It's ridiculous, at this point, the manner in which we test students to death. Anyone agree?