Q: I am a retired schoolteacher who taught at an elementary school for 30 years. I have never lost interest in educational and parenting issues. Among my own eight children and their spouses there are five active teachers.

I have recently become aware of situations across the country that have resulted in overemphasis and use of standardized testing as a means to supposedly reform education. A local teacher has been spearheading a campaign to advocate for students (and teachers) and has recently had two articles published in The Washington Post. She wonders whether child psychologists have noticed an increase in test anxiety and related issues. Your name came to mind, as I recall presentations you've given, your columns in newspapers and your appearances on NBC's "Today" show.

I am inserting a link to an article by Valerie Strauss that appeared in The Washington Post on Sept. 5 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/05/teacher-no-longer-can-i-throw-my-students-to-the-testing-wolves). I am curious as to your professional reaction to this issue.

A: Of course children can have too much testing. I think everyone would agree on that issue. The more important problem is to determine how much testing is too much, and that is much more difficult to assess. I've never heard children object to the testing, although I don't imagine they would love it. In answer to your question about increased frequency of test anxiety, I have not found more among my clients than previously, although there do seem to be more generally anxious children than in the past.

In the process of educating children, we know that families and schools should be working together. To blame teachers for children's failures removes the responsibility for children's learning from parents and the children themselves. It is a treacherous trap. If parents blame teachers, children will blame teachers and will not learn from them.

We should test our children's skills for many reasons. We need to diagnose problems so that teachers and parents can solve them. We need to give children practice at test taking because higher education requires testing for entrance to schools and careers. Government bodies want test results to measure the outcomes of their investment of large amounts of money into education. Teachers should also be evaluated, but achievement tests should not be the basis of teacher evaluation. There are simply too many other variables to consider to make children's test scores a valued basis for evaluating teachers.

If you specifically want to know whether I believe there is now too much testing, I can't give you that answer, because there is so much variability among school districts and states. As with most political and social organizations, education seems to move from one extreme to the other. I will have to leave it to the educators and politicians to settle this debate. Parents and teachers are also voters. Perhaps the beginning of voters speaking up will initiate careful re-evaluation of the testing atmosphere.

Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or srimm@sylviarimm.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.