Testing, Testing, 1...2...4?

I sat down with my cup of tea this morning to read the paper and there it was, front page..."Test Results Don't Meet Expectation". Exactly whose expectation would that be?
What's that old saying, if you continue to do the same thing over and over you will get the same result. Testing, yep, let's keep doing it over and over and see absolutely no improvement in education at all. I say let's try something new. Let's find out how much it costs each individual school to test, and let's put that money where it needs to go, mandatory parent meetings. Let's have EVERY parent visit school, learn what school expectations are, hear what expectations they have for their children, and then agree to support each other.
Every year when I look at those scores, I see one commonality...poverty and scores. The feds saw it too, and so they decided to put more money into the poorer schools. And it didn't work, so they put more money into the poorer schools. And when that didn't work, they raised teacher standards. And hey, that's been effective...NOT! Now what they have are lower scores, a higher drop out rate, a critical shortage of teachers, superintendents and principals who never stay with a school longer than they can make a better buck somewhere else and a school year that is comprimised of teaching to the test, practicing for the tests and taking the tests. Once again a crucial group was left out. Family. When our students walk into our classrooms, they are walking in with all the "stuff" they left their houses with. And believe me, knapsacks and suitcases on wheels only hold the physical stuff, the emotional stuff is inside of all of our kids.
It's insane.
Take a look at the scores in your community. Where is there a correlation? Once you find it, focus on the whys that are outside of the school and see what you can do. Here, in my community, the lower schools (mine being one) are in the lower economic areas with immigrants who can't speak English and are struggling to keep a roof over their families heads and food on the table. Is there something we can do there and see if that helps the scores?
Or, maybe, just maybe, can we get rid of the standardized test as we know it (a million dollar business I am sure), and actually model for our children a passion for learning and an understanding of what doing their best means?
Sign me up!