Assessing Children in the United States and in Australia

     I believe that in order to assess the child holistically we as educators must be able to look past what is bubbled in on an answer sheet.  Here in the United States, the No Child Left Behind program made it almost impossible for educators to teach what children were interested in; for example, teachable moments are often times passed up because of the fear that something that the child will be tested on will not be covered.  I think that NCLB has it's uses, but assessment of children as a whole should not be it.  
     I believe that children should be tested on skills that are going to be important to them later in life as well as the content of the curriculum that they are studying.  Students should be able to reason, to show that they have thought processes beyond bubbling in A, B, C, or D.  Students should be assessed on mathematical skills that they will need in a real world environment.  Students should also be required to be able to communicate effectively not only electronically, but in face to face situations as well.  Children who leave the educational system today are masters at memorization, but in the years to come, all that was memorized will be a faded memory.
    In Australia the children are assessed differently.  They are given a series of assessments that measure their knowledge in numeracy and literacy, science literacy, civics and citizenship, and information and communication technology.  These assessments are not the kind of teach-to-the-test assessments seen in the U.S.  The students are tested in third, fifth, seventh and ninth grade.  The goal of the assessments is to prove that the children will graduate the school system able to be productive members of society that have the skills needed to make a positive impact on the world. 
     In my opinion, there is too much emphasis placed on testing in the United States.  One of the key faults in the system are that children are not assessed in a variety of ways; in the classroom I am able to assess the students verbally, with a written assessment that allows the student to think and show understanding of the concept and through modeling.  the second issue that the assessment processes here present is that the creativity is taken from the classroom.  Students do not have time to do the fun, creative art projects that were found in the classroom before all of the rigorous testing regulations came about.