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I have been thinking about this subject for a while, I am education minor and I see this very often in my placement. I am placed in Gotwals Elementary School in Norristown, the school is predominately African American and recent Hispanic immigrants. The school is completely focused one meeting No Child Left Behind standards, and they teach for the PSSAs (Pennsylvania State Standardized Assessment). Most of the students are intellectually and economically disadvantaged, and it is visible in and out of the classroom. The students are quickly falling behind and have trouble with basic addition and subtraction, and these are third graders. These kids are quickly falling behind, and been given the easy answers on how to get the correct answers for the PSSAs. Education has evolved from learning content and basic critical thinking and strategy skills to learning for standardized testing. In other words we are teaching our students to evolve towards being better test takers rather than being good at working with real life situations and problems. It seems like a societal suicide, rather than helping our society evolve and progress.