As a school principal I am often asked why I do not support high stakes testing. After all, doesn't the existence of a test for graduation force kids to take school more seriously? And doesn't it make teachers do a better job of teaching?

The answer to both questions is no. In fact, it is my experience that not only do such tests not improve schools, they actually hurt them.

Before going on, let's get one thing straight; I am for high standards. My high school has some of the highest standards in Ohio, including requiring more credits for graduation than any other school as well as a Senior Project and Graduation Portfolio. The credits students have to earn are in core courses that all students must take to graduate. My argument against high stakes testing is not based on wanting to lower standards; it is that these tests are the wrong standard.

In a recent CNN report, (CNN Presents: High Stakes Testing) all the ways in which these tests lower standards were presented. Teachers report having to teach to tests, focusing on lower-level academic skills such as memorizing or choosing the most correct answer from a list. Students and parents recount cuts in valued programs and advanced courses to make way for test preparation. Colleges report that this generation of test-takers can pound out a five paragraph essay but seem unable to write analytically or consider multiple viewpoints.

Taken together these critiques demonstrate that by trying to impose on students, schools, teachers, parents and communities a one-size-fits-all testing program "dumbs down" the school curriculum. And at a cost that seems almost invisible to us now.

My fear is that by aiming for high test scores we are forgetting the most important role of our public schools. The real measure of our educational system is not found in standardized test scores, but in the lives our children are able to lead as citizens in our democracy.

Public education exists because democracy needs it. If there is any chance that we can meet as equals in the political sphere it will require that we all can make our own decisions, use the tools of public policy, sort out information, communicate, and compromise — simply put, think. To learn these skills requires grappling with big ideas, taking on major projects, debating, working in the community, researching, and writing. But will there be room for this in a curriculum focused on fill-in-the-blank tests?

Where or when will young people grapple with the ideas of Jefferson, Thoreau, DuBois, Stanton, or King if the only thing that matters is matching each name to a time period? Will students ever debate the role of science or theology in making public policy when all that counts is listing the steps in the scientific method? Are schools going to provide time for internships, community service, or field trips if the only measure of their success is a test score, not how engaged our children are? So far the evidence seems to be that the answers to these questions is simply "no"; there will not be time to teach young people to think when the only thing that counts is how well they test.

Furthermore, will there be room for our non-standardized kids in the growing world of standards?

There is growing evidence that more and more schools are "pushing out" students who are predicted to score poorly on state-mandated tests. In high schools across the country there is a growing "bubble" of ninth graders. The cause is school administrators retaining students so they do not take the state tests, often given in 10th grade or above. Retained long enough, many of these students simply give up and drop out. Or, as CNN, The New York Times, and others have reported, these youngsters are encouraged to leave school and get a GED.

And then there are the students who stay and try, but for whatever reason just don't pass. Just last week I had to deliver the news to "Sarah," one of these kids, that she could not graduate. She had failed the state math test, this time by one question.

There is so much more to know about Sarah than this one test score. That she came into her senior year deciding to make up for past wasted time and so took both Algebra and Geometry and is passing them both with a 'B' average. That her Senior Project involved organizing family and community members to plant the landscape design she had created for her church. That her Graduation Portfolio presents a young woman who has gone from quietly resisting school to vocally supporting more equal educational opportunities for all children.

But Sarah's success at reaching high standards does not count on the standardized test. It should. Because the skills she has demonstrated count in life, and Sarah is just the type of person that our democracy needs and deserves. Too bad the supporters of high stakes testing cannot see that these tests make a mockery of a real education. An education that focuses on the most genuine of assessments; the lives our kids lead as citizens and as our neighbors.