Rising to Greatness

This article really frustrated me because it was purely focused on test scores.  This sends a bad message to students that all they are is just a number on a standardized test and that all the teacher needs to focus on is rising that students number.  It does not take into account the growth that a student makes throughout the year.  There is more to being a person than scoring highest on a test; more focus should be put on actually retaining the information to be able to recall it in the future. Another thing that bothered me was that they talked about how are scores were around the national average and said that was pretty much awful since we were once at the top.  However, they didn't mention what the highest states had done to raise their scores that could help Iowa raise it's scores as well if we mimic their strategies.  They wrote the article as if Iowa had dramatically dropped in scores when in all reality we have reached a plateau with no means to climb higher.  I would be more interested in reading an article of what we can do instead of how bad we are.