Education has slowly become less about instruction and more about producing students capable of taking standardized tests. The classroom has become less of a place of learning and more of a place used to prepare students for tests. Classroom conversation is limited, discussion with other classmates is prohibited in most cases, and when a student enters school, he or she often enters a place with more rules and restrictions than a prison. Teachers often teach based on tests rather than in the real world. Instead of being a place of free thought and discussion, school becomes a place where students don't think, but memorize facts so they can later regurgitate them on a test. Education “reform” has created a factory that, in particular, standardized tests “contain too few items to allow meaningful within-subject comparisons of students' strengths and weaknesses” (Conchar), meaning that even if a student has great ability in a particular subject, a standardized test also correctly measures students' ability in that subject. Two students might get the same score, but one might be significantly stronger in different types of math that aren't even on the test. The best way to get students to learn is to have them perform tasks that can be repeated in the real world. Indeed, “the workers responsible for loading gallons of milk into crates had no more than a sixth-grade education” but were able to outperform the “more educated employees [who] replaced them” (Green). This means that dropouts performed exceptionally better in basic skills than those who are considered educated and more intelligent. The reason those who are educated perform worse, even when the odds are in their favor, is because when it comes to the real world, it's not a problem of words on a piece of paper, it's reality and school doesn't let you. prepare. To have a successful education, students need more than just a diploma at the end of their high school and college careers. They need life skills, values ​​and the ability to apply the skills they “learned” in school. Currently, education does not adequately educate students about the real world. The ability to solve problems is lacking and tests that merely simulate what is reality abound. There are alternatives to tests, lectures and boring classroom parties. It's time teachers were allowed to use these methods instead of being forced into the standardization that is our education