es Steinberg of the New York Times, Crew has used tests to "evaluate whether district superintendents...should be rehired, to determine whether struggling schools need more resources, and to identify schools that might benefit from a longer day or year." Kesler, a teacher at Public School 75 in New York, states "he knows the test is one of the few ways his students' performances, as well as his own, his principal's and even the district superintendent's, can be measured against the rest of the city." The simple observation of a school and its low scores would help a district then focus on fixing that school's problems. Hopefully, in finding that problem the school can look forward to higher scores in the next year of testing.Some schools have faced difficult problems about certain students taking standardized tests. These certain students are ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students. David Nakamura, a columnist for the Washington Post, writes, "schools might be excusing students from the tests as a way to artificially raise test scores." Holly Stein, an ESOL supervisor in Prince George, says, "if you don't have kids take the test, there's no accountability...." But, the argument being raised is that these students should not be accountable for material that they can barely understand. It is hard to rate a school on an English-written standardized test when many of the children taking the test speak Spanish as a first language. A better system needs to be developed so these students can be monitored by their achievements. Dr. Cookson illustrates that "There is the idea that if we can measure kids' achievement we can have a pretty good idea of whether they are learning or not." This measure of achievement is the main reason behind standardized tests. The standardized testing of America's young students is just a minor step toward reform. Ravitch suggests that there should be "clear standards by which to judge w...
