Benchmark Tests, the Destruction of America's Youth

   Teaching college English was always a very gratifying experience for me.  The ability to look out across a classroom and see the faces of those who were so eager to learn and run out into the world to put their mark on it. When I decided to go back to teaching college English, little did I know about what I would find in the classroom, but what I did find was as a result of Benchmark testing in public schools. Twenty years ago I could see the results of government intervention and the failing public school system. I knew then that a dumbing down process had begun, and today it is at an all time high.
   Walking into a classroom filled with students, each hidden behind a computer which would be their main source of learning, I knew teaching was at a whole different level then when I taught eight years ago.  Blackboard has a whole new meaning today then what it was the last time I walked into a classroom. Today, Blackboard is a program in a computer that teachers and students log into for their learning and information source. No longer does an instructor hand out a syllabus; students log into Blackboard and download the syllabus and read it online. Even their books are in an e-text to which they read online. What happens when that student cannot log into the system? What happens when Internet is unavailable?
   Not only has the whole computer learning and educational instruction system taken over, but since students no longer have to depend on their own mental capacities to learn basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation, they are at a loss when asked to write an essay without a computer. What about children who are not taught how to add 2 + 2, but instead are handed a calculator and shown how to push the 2 + 2 buttons and see it equals 4. When was the last time you handed a young cashier money and change after she had already totaled the purchase? They can't make change without a computer to tell them how much.Traditional education was about giving a student life skills and preparing them for college and for the world, today the government prepares them for a life of entitlements and dependence on a system that will fail them.
   This lack of basic traditional education between K-12 is why students in college have no idea how to even write a basic paragraph or know basic math. Our teachers are held hostage to the Benchmark Test required by the federal government's Department of Education in order to acquire the funding necessary to purchase all the fancy equipment needed to give our children inadequate life skills. They are no longer taught how to write in cursive; therefore, some of them cannot sign their own name, much less read a founding document like the Declaration of Independents in its original form. What happens when this generation no longer has their computers to give them the answers? Who will be there to help them then? Those who know how will no longer be alive to teach them, or they will be too old. Are you worried? I am.