Teachers union says testing serves “corporate interests”

With student performance steadily declining in America’s public schools, standardized testing is one of the few methods available through which we can gauge the efficacy of our teachers.
Unwilling to have their own abilities as instructors measured through the performance of their students, several teachers unions have called for the discontinuation of such tests. Among the latest to make such a demand are members of the Chicago Teachers Union.
The Windy City has long since dismissed rationality in matters of its own municipal policy. Claims made by the city’s teachers serve to exemplify the spirit of anti-captialism and rampant leftism with which Chicago has now become synonymous.
“Corporate interests continue to push towards a test-centered public education system,” a union report contended, adding such tests are “clearly harmful to students.”
Both Chicago’s radically progressive mayor Rahm Emanuel and his former boss, Barack Obama, have shown support for using standardize testing to justify merit pay increases for high-performing teachers.
Proving there is room to the left of those unrepentant ideologues, the Chicago Teachers Union effectively wants to eliminate any accountability from their jobs.
While these teachers join peers in several other states in disparaging the testing process, most agree students need to be tested regularly to monitor their progress and suitability for higher education.
Many students, however, have joined their teachers in the protest.
Student groups in various school districts have voiced their opposition to standardized testing, though I remember most of my classmates were against testing of any kind.
The fact that notoriously shortsighted high schoolers don’t like the testing seems to me to indicate it is probably in their best interest.
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