I am all for rewarding excellent teachers for their students' progress and improvement. However, my only concern is the fact that teachers are now only teaching kids how to take standardized tests. The pressure put on these teachers by their schools, district, and state for these kids to pass tests such as the TAKS has caused them to focus more on test strategies and has taken away the joy of teaching.

The kids are learning the information that they need to pass these tests, but they are not learning why this information is so. For example, I had a student whom after having read a Comprehension Practice Essay (on the Coersive Acts of 1774) for the TAKS, was able to tell me that the 4 Acts were a result of the Boston Tea Party (he's a very smart kid). However, he had no idea what the Boston Tea Party was when I asked him about it. He thought that it was a party where they all got together and drank tea in Boston. What shocked me most of all was that NONE of my class knew what the Boston Tea Party was. Nobody had ever taught them.

I know we need to have standardized tests, but we also need to actually EDUCATE the kids and not focus primarily on them. I am a product of DISD, myself, and now teach in DISD. But I cannot say that my education was a result of it. I transferred into DISD my junior year, and had to take what is now the TAKS test (used to be TAAS in the 90's). I had never heard of this test, except for that the test was a joke and super easy...That was a half true.

I ended up passing the test in flying colors in all subjects except writing. The reason I didn't pass the writing section was that I had learned an entirely different style of writing in private school. Here I was, thinking I had written this beautiful essay, and would wow whoever read and graded these tests, and I failed. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone except my teacher. She told me that I needed to write my essay using the "TAAS format" to pass. So, just to see if this was true, I wrote the stupidest essay with multiple grammatical and spelling errors, but I wrote it in the correct format (Intro, 3 supporting paragraphs, closure). Guess what...I passed it with flying colors!

I think if teachers are preparing students for any test, it should be the S.A.T. Otherwise, these students need to be educated about the important things in life. Our children are being underserved by bad teachers, and the good teachers don't even have time to help these kids to their fullest potential. It is sad.