Guest post by Rog Lucido.

NCLB ushered in the national era of high-stakes testing in all of our schools. Soon the consequences of this testing became apparent. The Alliance for Childhood revealed that parents, teachers, school nurses, psychologists, and child psychiatrists reported that the stress of high-stakes testing was literally making children sick. Kathy Vannini, the elementary school nurse in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, said she dreads the springtime weeks when children must take the MCAS -- the lengthy tests now required of Massachusetts students starting in third grade. "My office is filled with children with headaches and stomachaches every day," she reports. One third-grader was beside himself on the morning of the test--he could not stop sobbing. I've been a school nurse for twenty years, and the stresses on children have worsened in that time. But this testing has greatly increased their anxiety level."... The school's counselor, he added, reports more and more students with anxiety-related symptoms, sleep problems, drug use, avoidance behaviors, attendance problems, acting out, and the like..."

"I am seeing more families where schoolwork that is developmentally inappropriate for the cognitive levels of children is causing emotional havoc at home," says Dr. Marilyn Benoit of Howard University, president-elect of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. "The pressure on teachers to teach to tests and outperform their colleagues is translating into stressful evenings for parents and children." Sharna Olfman, a developmental and clinical psychologist at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, says, "Developmentally inappropriate early childhood education that is insensitive to individual learning styles is on the rise. It is no coincidence that we are witnessing an unprecedented increase in the number of young children being labeled and treated for psychiatric illnesses ranging from learning disabilities and attention disorders to anxiety and depression."

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