Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me!

("Joy to the World" - Three Dog Night, 1970)

Most people who work with kids mention joy when they describe what they like about their work.  They know how beautiful it is when a child's eyes light up because of an interesting fact or a funny story.  As an adult, I always wish my life were as full of joy as a child's.

I believe there is less joy in those children's eyes than there once was.  Spending hours each month practicing with arduous standardized tests and bubble sheets has done little to improve their reading ability and much to sap the joy out of their busy little lives.

Clearly we need a way to quantify our children's knowledge - to make sure they are gaining the skills that society has indicated they must have.  Since standardized testing has repeatedly been proven inaccurate because of children's demographics, testing ability, and mood on the day of the test, I think we should demand a better way.

Why not let professional educators, who are trained in assessment, be responsible for the assessments in their own classrooms?  Why not ask them to explain what their students have achieved each year in an honest way, without being afraid of punitive measures taken against them every time they are tasked with trying to reach a child who struggles?

The real problem seems to be society's belief that educators are dumb, lazy, and uncaring.  All of these things are true of some educators - as they are true of some members of every profession.  Instead of making principals responsible for hiring good teachers, we are making our children responsible for showing us their knowledge in a format so unwieldy that its results do not even give us a true picture of what's happening.

Simplify it.  Give everyone involved - parents, teachers, administrators, community members - a job to do, and then let them do it.

If we threw out all the bubble sheets at every elementary school in America, perhaps we would see some joy creep back into our children's eyes.