Submitted by TomH (not verified) on April 23, 2008 - 22:33.
You apparently don't understand the reality. It is not the teachers who miss the point. It is the states, and the school boards. It is the fed. Teachers want to teach. They want to teach creatively and with the zest and zeal that comes with being a true teacher. At least in Texas, this has been all but driven out of us. Elementary schools no longer have recess in many areas because they need that time to teach state testing strategies...to 6 year olds! It only gets worse from there.
No, the standards are good. But rigid standards that do not take into account the scenario a school finds itself in are broken before day 1. Should a school that has a 60% non-English speaking population be held accountable in the same manner that a school in white bread upper middle class suburbs are? How about a school that has an unusually high population of special needs students?
The standards aren't bad. The implementation is bad, and has been since day one. And parents who don't understand, along with politicians, and failed educators like Margarette Spellings have botched this. Your children, and the teachers who teach them, pay for it every day.
teaching to the test
Submitted by TomH (not verified) on April 23, 2008 - 22:33.
You apparently don't understand the reality. It is not the teachers who miss the point. It is the states, and the school boards. It is the fed. Teachers want to teach. They want to teach creatively and with the zest and zeal that comes with being a true teacher. At least in Texas, this has been all but driven out of us. Elementary schools no longer have recess in many areas because they need that time to teach state testing strategies...to 6 year olds! It only gets worse from there.
No, the standards are good. But rigid standards that do not take into account the scenario a school finds itself in are broken before day 1. Should a school that has a 60% non-English speaking population be held accountable in the same manner that a school in white bread upper middle class suburbs are? How about a school that has an unusually high population of special needs students?
The standards aren't bad. The implementation is bad, and has been since day one. And parents who don't understand, along with politicians, and failed educators like Margarette Spellings have botched this. Your children, and the teachers who teach them, pay for it every day.