Standardized tests have become a way of life in American education. It's how our students and schools are ranked.
But is this the only way to prove if our students are well-educated?

One organization wants to change our way of thinking.

Stacey Waters enjoyed the morning with her child, Austin.

But she used to spend mornings with many other children of her own.

"I taught third and fourth grade," says Waters.

Waters left teaching after giving birth, but she says education was not what she expected.

Stacey Waters says, "There was a lot of demands on the teachers, a lot of demands on the students. It wasn't the type of learning environment that necessarily I had dreamed of."

A national think tank is sounding the alarm. The Forum for Education and Democracy has created the 'Rethink Learning Now' campaign.
Officials want to change American education from a culture of testing to a culture of learning.

"Testing has its place, it's just that currently testing is overvalued," says Sam Chaltain, National Director for the Forum for Education & Democracy.

"Some people are test takers and some aren't," says Waters.

The campaign is nonpartisan. It's collecting stories from everyday people about life-changing educational experiences in the classroom. The campaign will use the stories to identify the areas where American education makes the grade, and what it needs to work on.

Rethink Learning Now will then suggest changes to how American students are taught and pass them on to educational leaders from the local to the national level.

It's an educational system Waters saw first-hand and hopes she can return to again.

One school official says standardized testing is needed to measure the success of schools and its students, but it's important to not emphasize too much teaching on the test.

If you'd like to learn more about the campaign, click on the link below.