Are you successful? I mean, really, take a look at all you've accomplished in your life so far and all that you still want to accomplish and CAN accomplish and tell me (or just yourself), Are you successful?
First, I suppose we should define how we are measuring that success. Perhaps you're a successful mother, partner, friend, or cat lady. Some amazing people I know (I'm even related to some of them!) are successful educators, entrepreneurs, and multitude other respectable professions. One could even be a successful bargain hunter, or a great success at always doing the right thing. The point is, there is no right definition of how a person can be successful.
Here's the thing: In order to continue funding the deeply-flawed No Child Left Behind model of standardized education for millions of American students, the government has declared the need to measure a school's success not by graduation rates or other classic indicators, but based on its pupils' ability to pass standardized tests. Then, some number-crunching bureaucrats use more deeply-flawed formulas to determine which schools get the most federal funds for the next batch of student-bots.
The trouble with measuring "success" based on test scores for either teachers or students is that there are so many different incarnations of "smart" or "gifted" that cannot be measured through the regurgitation of facts. Truly, one can memorize "correct" answers, and still have no skill in manipulating the information or creating something new from it, and those acts are the ones that will indicate future success in the professional and entrepreneurial marketplace. I will put it another way: the peons in any workplace can perform repetitive tasks reliably, but the guys (or gals) running the place have big, creative visions. (Bill Gates, anyone?)
In short, the current emphasis on testing, while great at training the future data entry clerks of America, does not serve as a reliable indicator of "success" in the terms we generally associate with that word, and endlessly hammering bright young minds with the added stress of practice tests and pre-tests and real tests is a detriment to their potential, in whatever field they find their strength.
