“Everything I loved about teaching is extinct.”

[OldRedneck]

9. "I don't think I'm leaving the education system. I think the education system left me,"

After 19 years of teaching social studies at West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Ron Maggiano is resigning, claiming that he's had enough of the public education system's infatuation with high-stakes testing. "I have made this decision, because I can no longer cooperate with a testing regime that I believe is suffocating creativity and innovation in the classroom," he said, a sentiment many educators across the country agree wholeheartedly with. Known for the numerous awards he has received over the course of his time as a teacher, Maggiano is using his status as a well-respected and clearly successful teacher to stand up for what he believes in: An education system void of suffocating standards that detract from learning.

"I don't think I'm leaving the education system. I think the education system left me," Maggiano said to The Oracle, the school's student newspaper. Since the SOLs (Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools) were instituted to assess student success, schools "have had less and less focus on creativity and innovation," he explained. "Instead, teachers teach to the test, trying to achieve the highest scores possible."

Read the full article here:
http://inthecapital.streetwise.co/2013/05/28/virginia-teacher-resigns-in-protest-to-states-obsession-with-standardized-tests/