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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

“American’s Didn’t Always Yearn for Riches.” « Deborah Meier on Education

“American’s Didn’t Always Yearn for Riches.” « Deborah Meier on Education:


“American’s Didn’t Always Yearn for Riches.”

Dear readers
I’ve noticed that even amongst my allies on school reform that tracking by so-called ability (test scores of some sort nowadays) is now back in fashion, and charter schools are another way to make it happen. The arguments for the practice, now conducted by essentially separating kids by test scores as early as possible, has probably never been more popular. In some ways it was our victory over earlier forms of tracking that led to using test scores, which are unbelievably sensitive to race, gender. social class and ethnicity/ When I arrived in NYC with three elementary grade children in 1966 I immediately enrolled them at PS 9 (in Manhattan’s west side). They were placed, by the school, ) in the top class in grades one, three and five–although no one tested them or