We have to be the change, with building community, community education, helping others develop a love of reading and learning, engaging in Socratic questioning and discussion, and working together for a future we all create together.

Combine this with inadequate pay for teachers, inadequate funding, class sizes that are too big, work loads that are too high, exhausted parents working around the clock to live paycheck to paycheck, and you have the recipe for the undermining of public education.

Teachers are required to teach according to these standardized tests. Therefore, they often have little to no time to teach critical thinking and literacy.

When teaching outside of the “zone of proximal development”, it often leads to frustration, a dislike of learning, feelings of inadequacy, and “learned helplessness” related to school and learning.

Standardized tests incorporate concepts that are often developmentally inappropriate, per the group age and grade level, due to their “zone of proximal development” and level of cognitive development.

If you are curious, look up Vygotsky & Piaget regarding child and human development science.

There is a reason accurate history, literacy, critical thinking, and SEL/DEI were targeted politically in public schools for decades, under the guise of standardized testing and “no child left behind”.