Re-reading a "classic"

Part of my summer must-do list is reading/re-reading a stack of professional development books I purchased over the years. Now that the first year back is under my belt, I want to be more organized and thoughtful about how and what I teach. That means going back to books I meant to read or think I need to revisit. Why? Nearly every day last year I found myself almost frozen with indecision: how should I teach writing?; how should I incorporate vocabulary; which reading strategy should I use to teach _______? Maybe that's the curse of being a teacher--there are always going to be a myriad of ways to teach. I want to be the best that I can for my students, and that means I cannot remember that I, too, am a lifelong learner. Today's book was Carol Jago's (2000)With Rigor for All: Teaching the Classics to Contemporary Students. One paragraph really struck me. "Every time teachers of literature give an objective test, they undermine their students' confidence in themselves as readers. The very act of posing questions whose answers will be judged as correct or incorrect sends wrong messages to students: that there is only one right answer, that their teacher is the source of all correct information in a classroom, and that the purpose of reading is to answer questions. Unless this set of beliefs is what we want to encourage, we must abandon all tests forever" (p. 97). As I was reading this I couldn't help but think of our nation's (and state's) obsession with standardized tests. We are equating reading with one test--a test that determines a whether or not a student gets a real diploma or a "certificate" that says he/she attended high school. Why on God's green earth are we doing this to kids?