standardized testing

As we discuss testing in our classes, I wonder why are we concentrating on testing so much?  Are the teachers of the nation about to rise up together and fight testing?  I know that we are going to learn how to assess children without using testing and we will be the “test subjects” for this type of assessment, but is it because we are being offered the chance to learn how to remove testing from our students everyday life so we can make their experience more enlightening and less stressful? or is it because "the teachers" are working on their own plan to remove standardized testing from the classrooms of America?

I really don’t know the answer to this, but this is what I’m going to take away from these discussions.  Teach the way you want to teach and in a way that is interesting and creative.  Try to work with other teachers across subjects or plan topics across subjects to keep the children engaged and information affirmed.  Try to incorporate student discussion in both small group and large group to allow students to hear others ideas and build off them.  Add role playing and hands on projects to surround the student in the subject matter.  Use creative and subjective ways to assess students, so they don’t consistently feel the pressure of exams.    A variety of learning methods will reach students in different ways and open access to students that are often neglected.  The enrichment of students will come through their engagement in the classroom and not through the repetition of knowledge in the same format.  If you offer many methods of learning and assessment in a classroom children will feel confident in themselves as scholars and will pass tests with out feeling the pressure of the standardized test.