An Educational Paradox: Are kids failing to 

meet standards, or are standards failing to 

meet the needs of our kids? 
By, Talia Gallo 
 

A “Mega-failure.” Those are the words former teacher, administrator, and curriculum 

designer, Marion Brady1 used to describe our education system in America. She claims that we 

have created test taking, conclusion copying, robots out of children we should be educating to ask 

questions, wonder, and experience the moment.  

She writes, “Most often, 

we simply teach biology, 

history, mathematics, and 

the rest of the traditional 

curriculum. It’s a rare 

teacher who sees 

disciplinary content as less 

important than enhancing 

student ability to 

categorize, draw 

inferences, generate 

hypotheses, generalize, 

1
Marion. (1995, November). Megafailure. ​NAASP Bulletin,​ pp. 115-120.
​Brady,
To read more, the link to her website is: ​https://www.marionbrady.com
1 
value, synthesize, or engage in other complex thought processes.” 

Brady wrote this in 1995. That’s why in 2001, the Bush administration decided to enact the 

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) which made educational standards e​ ven more​ of a reality for Title 

I schools. If they failed to comply, they would lose federal funding.  

According to the legal requirements, Title I schools have a large amount of low income 

students who are identified through qualifying for free and reduced lunch. They can be at risk for a 

variety of reasons: immigration, disabilities, 

homelessness, illiteracy, neglect, delinquency, 

etc. The schools receive money for this 

classification as long as they continue to, 

“make yearly progress on state testing and 

focus on best teaching practices in order to 

keep receiving funds2.” 

​So why is this focus on standards so 

problematic?  

The American Academy of Pediatrics states, 

“many school districts responded to the No 

Child Left Behind Act by reducing time 

committed to recess, the creative arts, and 

even physical education in an effort to focus 

2
US Legal, Inc. (2019). Title 1 School Law and Legal Definition. Retrieved from
https://definitions.uslegal.com/t/title-1-school/​.
2 
on reading and mathematics3.” With efforts to increase teacher assessments and make American 

students more academically competitive globally, researchers for the Education Forum wrote that 

Policy like NCLB and the more recent Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) ​have taken away from 

childhood development in pre-K through 2​nd​ grade. Even though under newer legislation 

standardized testing is only mandated from 3​rd​ grade on, “now more than ever school readiness is 

viewed as paramount to academic success4.” The pressure on teachers has increased time for core 

subjects, removing holistic aspects of education.  

In a textbook used for 

college students studying 

education5 (fig 1, 2, & 3), 

William Ayers, a teacher 

himself, explores different 

ways to approach the 

classroom. He delves into how 

standards and curriculum 

have trapped teachers into a 

box (fig 1). He includes a note 

reading, “I worry that too 

much of what kids experience 

in school is skimming along 

3
​Ginsburg, K. R. (2007, January 1). ​The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and
Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds.​ Retrieved from ​https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182​.
4
​Cuccuini-Harmon, Cara M. & Gallo-Fox, Jennifer. (2018). ​The Non-Tested Years: Policy’s Impact on Early
Childhood Curriculum,​ The Educational Forum, 82:4, 475-490, DOI: 10.1080/00131725.2018.1461524
5
​Ayers, William. (2010). To Teach: The journey, in comics. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
3 
the surface of knowledge and never really plunging in.” 

Even back in 1918, the National Education Association6 outlined the Cardinal Principles of 

Education with items like character, good use of leisure time, health, citizenship, and home life. 

The implementation of NCLB has erased some of these items from the curriculum, begging the 

question: Have we gone backwards? 

One educationist and philosopher, Nel Noddings, advocates for going back to educating the 

“Whole Child,” suggesting schools 

should foster a sense of happiness. She 

denotes that, yes, the government wants 

the nation to be competitive and 

reaching standards, but it also should 

need people with good character, we 

should be teaching this in our schools. 

We all want our kids to be happy, 

but this idea of an education system as a 

vehicle for regurgitation of black and 

white answers has a much more 

profound effect. Research indicates that 

an exclusively essentialist education 

negatively impacts child development. 

Developmentally Appropriate Practice 

(DAP) is an increasingly popular 

6
​Noddings, N. (2005). What does it mean to educate the whole child? Educational Leadership, 63(1), 8-13.
4 
educational method designed to aid in the full development of a well-rounded child. As written in 

the Education Forum, “optimal development of the whole child requires development of 

social–emotional, physical/motor, and cognitive (including executive functioning and language) 

domains.”  

Part of this social, physical, and cognitive development can be achieved through play (as 

explained in the next paragraph)--the exact opposite of rigorous math and literacy training. The 

forum suggests, “center-based activities and playful learning are two pedagogical approaches that 

support young children’s learning.” The former is direct learning with tangible, hands-on, 

materials, the latter is free and guided play. Instead of cutting back on art, science experiments, 

and recess play, those developmental practices can be used to benefit our kids.  

As seen in figure 3, nature can be beneficial for our kids ability to learn and grow. In a book 

about the benefits of the outdoors7 for children by Angela Hanscom, there is an emphasis placed 

on enhancing attention, learning, and creativity through being outside. Hanscom writes, “it is 

important to allow children hours every day to move and play in order to support attention in the 

classroom and healthy sensory integration.” In 2014, a study8 found that physical activity (the kind 

kids are given the opportunity to participate in at recess) in kids aged 7-9 increased cognitive 

function and brain health. Yet, by the late 1990s, Hanscom denotes that 40% of American schools 

had either limited or cut recess all together--despite the fact that getting kids playing can combat 

obesity and stress while improving behavior, social skills, brain function. This is supported by a 

study from the Center on Education Policy9 that writes, “​approximately 62% of school districts 

increased the amount of time spent in elementary schools on English language arts and or math, 

7
​Hanscom,
Angela J.. Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident,
and Capable Children. New Harbinger Publications.
8
​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25266425
9
​https://www.cep-dc.org/displayDocument.cfm?DocumentID=312
5 
while 44% of districts cut time on science, social studies, art and music, physical education, lunch 

or recess.” Such research directly opposes the​ 2017 plea from the Center for Disease Control10 

mandating that kids should be given around twenty minutes a day for recess time.  

Building off of these ideas, going back to the American Academy for Pediatrics, t​ hey write 

that time taken away from play and creativity--children being forced to adhere to more structured 

schedules--has led to higher levels of stress and anxiety in children.  

What many people, policymakers included, do not realize is that stress and anxiety are 

as much, if not more, of a problem than need for essentialist curriculum.  

Nadine Burke Harris, the CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness at the California Pacific 

Medical Center Bayview Child Health Center researches toxic stress in children. She specializes in 

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), childhood traumas like neglect, abuse, tumultuous home 

life, etc. (Ironically enough, things that very much line up with the “at risk” students that make up 

Title I student bodies). In a Ted Talk11, Burke Harris spoke, “​ I​ started noticing a disturbing trend. 

A lot of kids were being referred to me for ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but 

when I actually did a thorough history and physical, what I found was that for most of my patients, 

I couldn't make a diagnosis of ADHD. Most of the kids I was seeing had experienced such severe 

trauma that it felt like something else was going on.” She goes on to make an analogy to kids 

getting sick from drinking out of a well saying, “you can go ahead and write that prescription for 

dose after dose after dose of antibiotics, or you can walk over and say, "What the hell is in this 

well?" Those kids getting prescribed with attention disorders were actually suffering from the 

10
​https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/pdf/Recess_All_Students.pdf
11
​Burke Harris, N. (2014, September). How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime [Video
file]. Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime

6 
flight or fight response and stress and anxiety (the repetitive, physical release of cortisol and stress 

hormones) of ACEs.  

To get a handle on the gravity of this overlooked research, 67% of the sample population in 

existing studies have at least one ACE, one in every eight people having four or more. Those with 

four or more not only have the aforementioned behavioral issues, but also triple the risk of heart 

disease and lung cancer, and 20 years less to live.  

Kids in Title I schools have continually increasing expectations to meet and testing that 

increases stress, and also suffer from ACEs. Around 35 million children suffer from ACEs, 

touching all levels of society. However, it has been proven that the number of ACEs decreases as 

family income rises, hurting kids in Title I more12. Our education system is not only denying 

children, especially poor children, a holistic education and a proper childhood development, but it 

is also aggravating stress levels that are proven to deteriorate health outcomes a
​ nd​ reduce their 

attention in classrooms. ​The paradox is that the very standards that are supposed to be closing 

the education gap are preventing student’s ability to both learn and grow.  

And yet, T
​ he US Department of Education13 has a page dedicated to ​the Every Student 

Succeeds Act (ESSA) that was signed into law by President Obama on December 10, 2015. They 

promote this piece of legislations as, “good news for our nation’s schools.” It is described as the 

new and improved NCLB, which is considered by the cite a “significant step forward for our 

nation’s children in many respects.” The law will uphold many of the same practices as NCLB 

including high academic standards, now geared towards college and career preparation, and​ more 

12

https://acestoohigh.com/2013/05/13/nearly-35-million-u-s-children-have-experienced-one-or-more-types-of-childhood-t
rauma/
13
​ S Department of Education. (n.d.). Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Retrieved from
U
https://www.ed.gov/essa​.
7 
accountability for lower income schools. As time goes on, it is evident that standards will not 

relent, and it is up to us as parents, teachers, and taxpayers to show policymakers the inherent 

flaws of increasing standards and decreasing other elements of education, especially play.  

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