Talking to Vashon school board candidates this week, it was clear that the amount of testing done at the island’s elementary and middle schools is a controversial topic for the board, as well as teachers and parents of schoolchildren.

The candidates I talked to said that parents and teachers had complained last year, specifically about the amount of testing done. The new Common Core curriculum required an overhaul of government-mandated standardized tests, and also called for updated guidelines for teachers and the tests they administer outside of the government regulations.

The culmination of the testing between federally-mandated and individual teacher tests has been too much for many local parents who are tired of their children coming home and saying they have taken yet another test.

Teachers should not have to avoid giving their own tests in an effort to keep the overall number down, but they should be able to explain to parents, to the best of their ability, what the tests are aiming at accomplishing.

But what can be done? With standardized tests being required by the government, teachers are not able to easily refuse the tests without repercussions. The tests they choose to give their students help them to understand what is being learned and what they need to teach further. With classroom tests given by teachers, students and instructors can then sit down and address the problem areas so the students understand. Standardized tests are on a schedule as such the results are not available until after the school year ends. If a student did not understand a standardized test question or subject, it will not be addressed, and the student is on to the next grade.

While federal standardized tests are government attempts to keep each state in the country on the same page, the standards cause many teachers to lose their individualized teaching approaches. While the idea of country-wide education standards seems like a necessary step as people become more nomadic, the standards cause teachers to abandon all they’ve learned about individualistic teaching to every child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Teachers dealing with the standardized testing system should not stop teaching to the needs of each student. Just because testing has become standardized does not mean the students have, and teachers are the only remaining link in the education system with heart and passion. The best and most remembered teachers are those that inspire students, not those with the highest state test scores. That passion and inspiration is where the focus should be.