To the Editor:

I am ashamed of being a teacher because I made a child cry today for trying his best and doing absolutely nothing wrong — all in the name of “teacher effectiveness.”

How can someone who has a love for teaching feel ashamed to be a teacher? The answer is simple: I don’t feel like my job is to teach.

My job is to test. My job is to take notes on students. My job is to make good children so frustrated that they grow up with a distaste of learning and a distrust of teachers.

Today we began our Measure of Student Learning test with my 2nd-grade students. This exam has highlighted exactly what is wrong with our education system.

I had a student, 7 years old, break down crying because he felt so frustrated by the test. Even though we did our best to explain to the students that this is a pre-test, that this is before we learn how to do this work, that it doesn’t matter if they don’t do anything right, this student was so overwhelmed with the environment of pressure the school has created that he lost control.

The writer wishes to remain anonymous