As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap…..
We cannot let continuing evidence of the folly of test-centric education be obscured by the craziness of our polarized politics or the increasingly frequent (and devastating) proof of climate change, because, make no mistake, public education is in danger, and not just from Betsy DeVos and her privatizing schemes.
Here’s my headline: Since the non-partisan “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001 ushered in ‘accountability’ and ‘school reform,’ things have generally gone south, and students and teachers are paying the price. Students are being mis-educated and undereducated by a system that basically reduces them to a number, their score on standardized, machine-scored tests.
The latest evidence comes from ACT’s report on the “Performance of 2018 Graduates,” and it’s not pretty. The ACT score range is 1-36, with 20 being “OK.” The average score in English, 20.2, is a point lower than its high point in 2007. And the average math score, 20.6, represents a 20-year low.
But it is actually worse than that, because ACT also measures whether our high school graduates are ready for college…and most are not.
As Education Week’s Catherine Gewertz reported, “Math and English scores drew the attention of the ACT by another measure, too: readiness for college-level work. The ACT’s score benchmarks are correlated with the likelihood of earning Bs or Cs in credit-bearing coursework. And increasing numbers of students are falling short.
Only 4 in 10 met the math benchmark, the lowest level since 2004, and down from 46 percent in Continue reading: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap….. | The Merrow Report
