Real Problems in Education and Teachers Who Cheat
In Memphis, a man who was helping an elderly woman into her car was attacked by a group of young people at a gas station across the street from a charter school. In another part of town a mom worries about gang retaliation at her child’s high school.
Memphis is not alone. No matter what city you look at, you can find frightening stories, about what’s happening to America’s young people and how it is affecting their communities. There are serious problems with our youth everywhere.
High-stakes testing is not the answer to these problems.
Going after teachers for fudging answers on high-stakes tests to save their jobs, even wanting bonuses, is no answer either. It is terribly punitive at best, considering the high-stakes culture of test-taking, and is far off the mark of the real problems facing students and this nation.
In fact, the culture of high-stakes testing is adding to the problems in our public schools and in the country. Tests waste time and resources. More importantly, tests are impersonal. They are merely a tool even when they are done right. They don’t get to the heart of who students are and what they can become if given the right support.
Most tests today don’t provide information that can practically assist teachers in directing better instruction. Teachers don’t get the information back until it is too late. This doesn’t help students!
High-stakes tests are all about comparing schools and blaming them for what they aren’t doing right.
High-stakes tests are all about comparing schools and blaming them for what they aren’t doing right.
They don’t provide any answers on how those schools can improve. The scores are also more about arbitrarily firing teachers and closing public schools. If this weren’t the case the goals would be much different, and teachers would be included in the decision-making surrounding their jobs.
The Atlanta case played into the continuous drone that an unforgiving public, and the Real Problems in Education and Teachers Who Cheat:
