The hallmark of NCLB is that "Every Child Can Learn," which is a noble thought, but it’s also misleading because, given the way that we assess students and schools for NCLB is the high-stakes test, the assumption is that every student learns the same way. This isn’t new. This isn’t revolutionary.

But then watch Sir Ken Robinson talk about the dancer who never fit into the regular class. Then go visit City As School or any other school where kids learn in non-traditional ways. Then ask yourself this — in making the arrogant assumption that the only way that the state can measure educational results is with the test — what are we losing?

There are more questions… like… what is important for all students to know? What is more important — demonstrating recall or demonstrating problem-solving skills? Immediate ability or the ability to produce over time?

What are the schools we want? What are the schools we need? And how can we enact policy that might actually get us there?

There is, of course, another question as well… what does a well-educated person have to deeply understand? What content is so vital that all Americans (and sorry Graham Wegner, I’m thinking about US education here) must know it? The funny thing is that, for me, the most important content, we don’t test for… civics knowledge. Beyond that, I think all students must know how to read at a high level, and I think that all students must be able to understand mathematics and statistics so that they can take part in our society. I think students should have an understanding of a scientific view of the world, but I don’t think there’s really any one fact that is essential in science for all Americans.

All of this is on my mind as I transition from my summertime experiences as a speaker / consultant back into the day-to-day of SLA. We’re trying to build a school for a diverse group of learners. We’re trying to prove that there are multiple ways for students to succeed and learn. And we’re trying to prove that there is something higher than skills, higher than content on the hierarchy of learning, and that’s understanding. But it does worry me that we — and all the folks in schools like ours — are swimming upstream against the tide of educational policy in this country. And it does worry me that there are a lot of kids — future dancers, future artists, future designers, future thinkers — who are being told that, according to the testing coin of the realm, they are not learning. And worse, given the coin on the realm, they are being taught in schools that deny them the chance.