Texas, the birth place of "No Child Left Behind," dramatically cuts back on the number of standardized tests students must take. Is this the beginning of the end?

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The state that inaugurated the expansion of standardized testing in America’s schools 30 years ago and provided the model for the No Child Left Behind Act has now said enough is enough. 

Late Sunday night, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that cuts the number of standardized tests for the state’s 1.4 million high schoolers from 15 – the nation’s highest total -- to five. Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign the bill within days. 

“Legislators heard their friends, neighbors and constituents,” said education historian and native Texan Diane Ravitch, a former testing proponent and adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush who has now become testing’s most prominent foe. “This is proof that democracy works.” 

Opponents argue that preparing for the exams consumes an increasing portion of the school year and that they don’t develop students’ critical thinking abilities. 

Texas is not the only state where expanded testing faces a backlash. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia have received waivers from meeting the ambitious goals of No Child Left Behind, the 2002 law that helped spark an explosion of school testing nationwide. Eight more states have requested waivers. In November’s election, one of the nation’s foremost proponents of testing and accountability, Indiana public schools chief Tony Bennett, lost his job to a Democratic challenger after one four-year term in a “red” state.

I hear from teachers all of the time and the number one complaint that ALL of them have is that preparation for these standardized tests has completely taken over their curriculum and forced them to become a profession who focuses on test prep instead of actual learning.

As many of you know I worked in a Kindergarten room and even WE had to take a significant amount of time away from education in order to set up and prepare the children for these tests. And the stress put on teachers was nothing short of draconian, as the result could see funding cut or a bonus provided to the school and its teachers.

Now that the Iraq war is coming to an end the most egregious policy still remaining from the Bush administration is NCLB, and it is time to toss it aside and really improve our education system by empowering the teachers, funding the schools, and turn the focus to creating an environment that nurtures creativity and innovation and does NOT attempt to turn our children into uninspired cogs in a giant, and ultimately pointless, machine.