Standards of Learning tests will soon come to a school near you in Western Tidewater. Local students will collectively be taking 32 SOL tests, which is not counting all of the additional components.

For example, fifth graders will take four tests — not including the fact that the math component is really two tests — over a two-week period, and this is after taking benchmark tests that resemble SOLs all year.

If they don’t do well, and many economically disadvantaged students will not, the schools will be impacted, as will what the teachers earn. It’s also on their permanent record and will hurt them going forward. No pressure for a 10-year-old.

Tying accountability to tests in this way seems to be designed to keep low-performing schools right where they are. Good teachers will be more inclined to leave these systems for higher-performing schools. Their wages aren’t penalized, and they get somewhat more freedom since a constant threat of losing accreditation or outright having the school closed isn’t being held over their heads by stressed-out principals.

Further, the work at low-performing schools isn’t that fun, as much research has suggested that systems in an economically disadvantaged community have to resort to becoming “test factories.” That is, their entire school year is devoted to teaching the tests administered at the end.

What if a student would perform better learning in a different way? Research suggests that children do learn in different ways, and if a good teacher was free to experiment, a better mousetrap could be built for many of these students.

Experimenting isn’t easy, though, under our current guidelines. It’s almost like these students just have to suck it up and try to learn like the ‘standard’ child, whatever that mythical creature is. There’s just too much at stake with these tests.

Doesn’t sound good for students or teachers, but so what if it is working, right?

We’ve now put an entire generation of children through the accountability system of No Child Left Behind, and there is data that’s not for the faint of heart.

When we started in 2002, the education system in the U.S. ranked near the bottom of developed nations. There were some gains by 2009, as the U.S. had moved up to 25th in math, 20th in science and 11th in reading. Fast forward a few years, and it has slipped to 31st, 24th and 21st, respectively.

The mean scores for our children are below average in every single category. And guess what? We’re still near the bottom of developed nations and our spending is at the top.

There’s no magic bullet for fixing education, but there are a few case studies, including Finland, which might assist. In the 1980s, the Scandinavian country’s education system was also below average. There was a surge of progress, though, and by the year 2000 the country emerged as the top scoring system in the world. Finland has dipped below nations like Japan and South Korea recently, but it is still in the top four.

Research has suggested that the surge and continued success is because teachers have the power, not state and federal bureaucrats. They don’t have to teach to a test because there’s only one standardized test, and that’s for assessing college preparedness if a student wants to take the university path. The country isn’t involved in assessment up to that point because teachers design the quizzes. Children aren’t measured against other children, but by their own individual development.

All of this sounds pretty intuitive, and another common sense statement is that a teacher will know the best method for guiding an individual through the learning process, not the state. Therefore, curriculum is largely up to individual teachers on the classroom level in Finland.

To top it off, teachers are spending less time being confined in the classroom — two-thirds of what is expected in Franklin or Southampton County. Instructors are spending the rest of their time on clubs, tutoring and other activities that also lead to the development of children.

They get a lot of power, and it leads to the profession being viewed as a respected and independent job path, not an implementer of technical mandates from high above, far removed from the classroom. More power does mean higher requirements for teachers, and a master’s degree from a respected state university is standard for the primary-, middle- and high-school level. Only the best and brightest are selected for this path, but it’s a profession more of the best and brightest young people want to do, since they are actually treated as a respected part of society and the workforce.

Teachers are often demoralized in the U.S., and who can blame them? They spend all year teaching to a test that they most likely do not agree with. And their well-being is tied to what bubbles an overwhelmed child selects on a test system criticized for being confusing, unintuitive and inadequate.

Further, parents are yelling at them because their child isn’t learning in a system that teachers have no control over; their opinions don’t matter; and the administration is breathing down their necks with benchmarks, data and tests, tests, tests.

It’s no wonder many go back to school to become something else or decide to just be underemployed. The real shame is that all of this institutional misery is not even producing adequate results.

I don’t have any children, but one day I will. When that day comes, I would rather have a good teacher be responsible for that child’s educational achievement and needs — not a state and federal government body that knows absolutely nothing about the individual.

The Finnish system probably would not holistically work in the U.S., but it certainly seems like empowering teachers, who actually interact with real children, would go a lot further to correct the problem than No Child Left Behind ever will.

CAIN MADDEN is the managing editor of The Tidewater News. He can be reached at 562-3187 or cain.madden@tidewaternews.com.