Quality Over Quantity in Academics

If I had the authority to change how schools are run, the first thing I would change is the amount of paperwork that teachers need to do. In recent years, the focus has turned from student's education to the metrics they rely upon to see if students are learning. They have started to focus on metrics as an end point as oppose to a means to an end. I believe we need to refocus ourselves on what's important, the students, not the student scores. Obviously the two are related but we seem to have lost sight of what is really important. 

During my semester of student teaching, I got to experience this first hand. My cooperating teacher and her colleagues were very stressed with the amount of paperwork they had to complete before a specific time. Rather then giving the students the opportunity to be immersed in their classroom studies, they were constantly being pulled out of class to be tested. I think that, unfortunately, the stress was unnecessary. I feel like most teachers, if given the autonomy to teach as they see fit, would be more effective. The policy of teaching for the test scores should be thrown away and replaced with teaching for the student's needs. 

Another policy that I would like to change if I had the authority to is that Students with Disabilities are being forced to follow the same curriculum as students without disabilities. Although teachers are given the opportuniy to modify the curriculum, the state should provide a curriculum specific to those students with special needs. Students with disabilites do not learn the same way that general education students do and should have their own curriculum to follow. If it takes them more time to understand concepts, how are they supposed to keep up? Not only should should it be modified to fit their needs, but I also believe that depending on the developmental levels, the curriculum should be less academic and more functional to teach daily life skills. The end goal should result in the student living independently and becoming an active part of a community. Oh, and let's talk about state test. Students with disabilities are also required to take the same state tests as the general ed population. How is it that all of their other tests are modified, except the one that is portrayed as the most important? There may be small modifications made to them but overall the tests are the same.