Testing supporter President Bush said, if we are teaching math and reading, teaching to math and reading tests makes sense. However, math and reading include many distinct skills. If a test gauges only a few of those skills deemed as important; are teachers only emphasizing those skills that are being tested, possibly ignoring other skills that are just as important? For example, San Antonio, Texas fifth-grade teacher Teddi Beam-Conroy used to liven up her history lessons on the Colonies by having her students do simulations to better understand the concept of being "colonized" (Beam-Conroy). Now such special projects are an unaffordable luxury. Teachers are too busy prepping students for the state-mandated tests.

Many people argue that if test scores are low, basic skills should be a priority. After all, it seems students should master the basics first. However, good teaching should let basic and higher skills reinforce one another. A student need not perfect an ability to recall details before learning to summarize a main idea.

Jim Nelson, the former Texas Education Agency president, claimed that standardized tests are not used to label students as incapable of learning, to place students in a grade or a class, or to evaluate teachers (Nelson). However, in Texas, teachers are given a class set of color-coded labels. Blue labels for students who have excelled on tests in previous years; green labels if everything is okay; yellow labels for scores that were passing but close to 70 percent; gray labels for a student who might slip below 70 or who has passed one year but failed another; and red labels are for students who have failed for two years. Teddi Beam-Conroy said, “in what amounts to educational triage, we looked for those students whose scores are closest to the 70 they need to pass”. Teachers are told to concentrate on giving the yellow and gray-labeled students extra help and basically let the red-zone children flounder. She also states, “for the first time in my career, my teaching methods were called into question”; not because her students’ report card grades were low or because of parent complaints, but because her math test scores were low. The message was clear to her; raise

Some topics in this essay:
Teddi Beam-Conroy, Rice University, Nelson Texas, President Bush, Department Education, Left Act, Achieve Inc, Standardized Testing, Education Agency, Linda McNeil, test scores, standardized testing, standardized tests, basic skills, main idea, math reading, teaching math reading, reading tests, teaching math, teddi beam-conroy, scores low, test scores low,