Mr. Moby! I have been listening to you since I was a little bitty girl on my way to school! I remember one year you came to a Christmas parade, when I was about seven and you threw a piece of candy to me and it made my day. Hear me out with this email I am about to pour my heart out to you about something that is so important to me... I am now twenty one years old, and I am a college student well on my way to my teaching degree. I feel sick to my stomach because I don't know what I am going to do with my degree once I receive it. President Obama is working on passing a bill that will raise teacher "accountability" AKA more standardized testing. Standardized testing is killing the art of teaching. In the teaching field there is a term, "teaching to the test" this simply means that every lesson a teacher plans must be structured around requirements to get students to pass a standardized test. More standardized testing will only further limit my creativity in the classroom. Standardized testing is a trend that is completely politically motivated in order to ease the public's worried minds about their children's lack of education. I really believe politicians are clueless when it comes to education. I love children and I have wanted to be a teacher since I was five, but thirty thousand dollars a year is little compensation for all of the pressure that comes with the job. Test scores will always vary. Should I lose thousands of dollars a year because I teach a class full of students who chose not to come to school? Or should I lose money because I teach a class with students who have had failing test scores for years? A student's ability at the beginning of a school year and improvement by the end of the school year are not measured with test scores. I have always wanted to work with the youth, but I have bills to pay too, especially after 4-6 years of college. Raise furlough days, cut spending for education, and implement the merit pay system (pay based on test scores)...can you say teacher shortages?!!! Let us continue offering alternative licensing for teachers, let’s continue teaching to a test, let’s raise the number of standardized tests, let us have the audacity of measuring a child's intelligence yearly by a test score....and lets see how smart your children are when they get out of school. The future of education is looking grim. Eventually there will be no teachers left with any creativity or heart...instead children will just go to school and cram for the things on whatever upcoming test they will be taking their CRCT, Gateway, EOCT, graduation test...take your pick...there's only more to come. I have decided that if Obama goes through with his plan for education that I will not be a teacher, but go into the private sector doing something such as tutoring students outside of school, or opening my own childcare/preschool service. We need to start putting educators in control of education. Educators are the ones with heart. We go into this profession not because we will make lots of money, but because we love teaching the youth. All educators will have great appreciation for the things I have said. President Obama please have mercy on my future career as an educator. Standardized testing is killing the art of teaching, please don't further limit my creativity in the classroom...no more political "reforms" to education. Yeah baby! Love you Mr. Moby! thank you, Brittany Alicea