The purpose of the qualitative phenomenological study was to explore and understand the impact of standardized testing on educational practice in an urban, Title I school community, and to determine solutions to improve the utility of standardized testing in supporting student learning and achievement. The specific areas of focus are diagnosing and helping students' learning needs in specific subject areas, the perceived relationship between standardized testing and student achievement, how accountability is factored in when making decisions for the school community, and the influence standardized testing has on these leaders' involvement with instructional practices and curricular decisions. These elementary educational leaders were asked to envision and explicate changes to standardized testing that would make it more useful for their school community. Wray's theory was used as the theoretical framework of the study, as the theory suggested that non-standardized assessment approaches are more effective. An email interview protocol was used to evoke and collect elementary educational leaders' substantive reflections regarding their collective experience (O'Connor & Madge, 2017; Hawkins, 2018; Dahlin, 2021). These reflections and recommendations were analyzed through conceptual and semantic analysis. Meaning units identified from interview participants' reflections for their first order activities and second-order mental and affective responses included "Diversity Considerations", "Activism", "Lack of Usefulness", "How to Close the Gaps", "Factors Affecting Testing Outcomes", "Limitations", "Usefulness", "Leadership Solutions", "Teaching Solutions", "What is Needed", and "Leadership Management Components". These meaning units clustered together to form four clusters: "Problem and Challenge Essences", "Mental and Affective Responses for Reducing Problems and Challenges", "Essences for What is Working", and "How to Move Forward". The educational leaders at this urban, Title I school community identified benefits, challenges, and limitations of standardized testing from their experiences. One of the surprises was that the responses regarding standardized testing were much more positive than expected. While the results shared the challenges experienced, they more often shared how these educational leaders used "home-grown" adaptive solutions to make standardized testing useful and to help their students learn in this high-stakes testing environment. These leaders also shared future solutions which, through activism and further innovation and adaptation, will improve navigation for effective teaching and learning in the standardized testing environment. Therefore, many educational leaders develop professional development training that would give teachers the opportunity to collaborate and review findings from a variety of case studies. Further, these professional developments are being provided through the Texas Public Charter Schools Association (TPCSA), TEA (Texas Education Agency) Region 10, and Region 20 Service Centers to support the TPCSA mission, which enables participating school communities to effectively serve students while meeting the state's academic goals. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]