"Since my students have begun to take the tests to show that we are meeting ESEA standards, their understanding of math has gone down. I have been teaching seventh-grade math. My students understand less about math now than they did before ESEA. Now, we have all these concepts that must be presented by early March. I am told that the students must know the processes for getting the answers.

"Understanding why does not matter, as long as they get the correct answers. They must learn which buttons to push on the calculator, and in what order, but without understanding, knowing which buttons to push will not lead to more advanced thinking. They just want to know what to do next, not why.

"The students are concerned about passing the tests, not knowing what they are doing. They are improving in passing the required tests for ESEA purposes; however, they are doing worse in the tests that I give them, the ones that show true understanding.

"I cannot continue to present information to my students at a breakneck speed regardless of their ability to absorb the information. I have had students who have tested on a fourth-grade level in math, and I have still been expected to teach them the seventh-grade curriculum, following the timetable for students who are on grade level. Needless to say, those students just fall further behind and learn to hate math and think that they are stupid because they cannot learn the math that is being presented to them.

"I am extremely frustrated, and so are my students. I must be allowed to teach the students at the level they have achieved and to work with them at their speed. We all learn at different rates, just as we achieve physical milestones at different rates. Yes, all children can learn, but they learn differently and this must be accepted. We accept physical differences; we make allowances for physical differences. Why do we think that we are all the same intellectually? Why can we not accept intellectual differences?"

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