Janet Ewell, a high school teacher in Orange County, wrote a wonderful opinion piece called «Test-Takers, Not Students» in the L.A. Times on May 26. I almost missed it. It certainly deserves wider exposure:

Test madness and centralized curriculum control squeeze creativity out of the classroom
‘It is popular to blame the federal No Child Left Behind Act for California’s educational woes, but our misery is largely homegrown and predates the 2001 law. A friend who teaches at a prestigious suburban school recently told me that she was on leave and didn’t think she was going back. “I can’t stand giving kindergartners timed standards tests and watching tears trickle down their cheeks,” she said. “It’s just not right.”
‘I know how she feels. This fall, we were at first forbidden to teach novels — any novels — in the college preparatory English classes at our high school. We must teach from the textbook because “the Holt textbook is aligned to the California content standards,” the principal said. No “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” No “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The good news is the administration at my award-winning urban district relented and is allowing us to teach one novel, now that we are done with 18 hours of California Standards Tests.
‘The bad news is the district tells us we can do so only if we use the novel to “reinforce content standards” and not “teach it cover to cover,” and the novel must “not supplant Holt’s minimum course of study.” The district allows me seven hours to teach To Kill a Mockingbird to my students, a third of whom are English learners and two-thirds of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.’
LA Times

Best indictment I’ve read lately.