Examples Of Letter To Sproles

The education system is deeply flawed. It does not fight social injustice, but rather exacerbates the issue. The majority of people in the U.S are blind to the fact that there are still inequities within the education system, much less everyday life. A system based on standardized test scores inadvertently oppresses poor people. The Governments ' decision to judge a schools ' success by its test scores evidently created a faucet of running water for systematic oppression. The flowing water of oppression floods poor schools; drowning students with dreams, and giving no mercy. The only ones safe from the water are the privileged, who are oblivious to the fact that it exists.

“…only twenty-two percent of those surveyed said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools compared with twenty-eight in 2007” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). Furthermore the poll indicated an eleven percent increase, compared to last year, towards the favor of discontinuing the usage of students’ test results for teacher evaluations. William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of PDK/Gallup Poll also stated, “Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). All in all, not only are these tests a concern for students, who are forced to sit through them, hoping to get a decent enough score to place into a class, receive their diploma, or even get accepted to the college of their dreams, but they are a concern for parents as well, who only want the best for their children and to see them succeed.

Many high schools are spent huge amount of time and resources to prepare high school students to test or even being responsible citizen. Diane Ravitch in her essay “The essentials of a good education” tells about it, “More time was allotted to take practice tests in mathematics and reading. Because there are only so many hours in a day, there was less time for subject that were not tested” (page 106). She believes that if student spent whole day to prepare to test and get “A”, such school is a not really good school, even if gets high scores and the state awards it an “A”. Also many educated parent are would not tolerate a school that cut back or eliminate the arts to spent more time preparing for state test. If student will study well on each subject, for example good enough on math, writing and reading so he/she will not need extra class to prepare for test and spent his/he time and money. So Diane Ravitch believes that, our education system is in wrong way because they spent much time to preparing test. On the other hand, John Taylor Gatto in his essay “Against school” represent that, the problem of US education is not to give a knowledge, but conversely to make good citizens or workforce. He tells in his essay that US education system become like Prussian system, “Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern. One of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens - all in order to render the populace "manageable."(117). In his opinion the education system problem was that they make people become predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor

Only recently with the addition of the Common Core Standardized Tests, students are being faced with more tests than ever. A typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and 12th grade (Study says standardized...). In my opinion, the complexities of these tests are inclining to a degree where they are unreachable to the average student. These tests are an unreliable measure of performance with unfair instruction time. Student anxiety and stress has become so awful that the Standford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do in case a student vomits on the test. While the tests are there for students skill-measurement scores, they aren’t the only one’s who need to prepare for the exam. Teachers are equally pressured by their overhead figures to insure student’s score well. Just like the students, standardized tests are an imprecise measure of teacher performance, yet they are used to reward and punish teachers. Teachers are being required to a more progressive teaching style with emphasize on reflective learning. The effects of this are being nicknamed “drill and kill” test prep. Developing a corresponding curriculum prior to these assessments can be tricky because of the ambiguous content the Common Core requires. A considerable majority of these tests are given to students online. These already pricey tests come at an expensive cost for schools. An underlining problem people are concerned about is declining student scores being used as an excuse to close public schools that already can’t afford for the computers to take the test, and open more voucher

Since, schools need the passing testing sores, not only do schools eliminate classes, they make classes become only test-prep. In efforts to raise scores, a continuation of No Child Left Behind by Obama called Race to the Top was put in place. Part of Race to the Top includes judging teacher performance based on students’ test scores. When teachers are responsible for student scores, the class room is bound to change. The negative effects are this are described in an article in the Wall Street Journal, “Drilling children on how to take tests discourages innovation and creativity, punishes divergent thinking, and prioritized skills over knowledge. And the endless hours devoted to test preparation certainly deaden students’ interest in school” (Ravitch web).

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

It’s been a known fact that American education is going down the drain and no one knows how to fix it. It’s also a known fact that many people have ideas on how to fix education, but no one is sure what to implement. Some people have given suggestions on fixing education, and such as using different state tests and not letting the states decide what is passing. However, there is a bit of disagreement, as those who are giving advice cannot agree on whether standardized tests should be used, and who should be blamed for students falling behind.

There is this idea of how if the teacher’s students do great on the test it means that they are great teachers, which is not necessarily the case. Columbia University states, “Standardized testing causes many teachers to only “teach to the tests,”. This practice can hinder a student’s overall learning potential. With the stakes getting higher and higher for teachers, this practice will only continue to increase. The sad reality is that it fosters an atmosphere that is boring and lacks creativeness. Teachers have such pressure to get their students ready for these exams that they neglect to teach students skills that go beyond the tests.” With the lack of teachers actually using their skills to teach the curriculum and the only thing they teach is how to take tests, school will not be where students would want to learn, and they will eventually drop out in the future. Also teaching tests will not help students in life in any way, especially without the teacher and student

Prince EA, a motivational filmmaker, poet, and speaker, made a YouTube video about the United States education system, he opens with a quote from Albert Einstein that states, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” To put this into perspective, standardized tests represent the tree and students represent the fish. Most students don’t process information in the same way. In Fact, it’s widely accepted that different approaches to learning have numerous advantages to stimulate

Have you ever stopped to wonder why students across the globe must forfeit valuable time in class to take nationally mandated tests? With these dreadful clouds that always seem to be blocking out the light of success, one might stop to wonder. Why? These well-known tests began in the early 1900s, when the S.A.T. made its debut. This test, the Scholastic Assessment Test, was originally used to help the government gauge how schools were handling their educational practices. In the 1940s the test began to hold weight in the academic community as colleges began requiring one’s score before admission. Then in the 1960s, the government began to try to provide more ways to properly grade school districts. For a time, these costly tests worked very well. But now in present day, as times have

The first issue Parsons tackles in his article is the differences between high school teachers and university professors. He makes sure to begin by stating, “I am your professor, not your teacher. There is a difference.” (Parsons) He evaluates teachers as only caring about test scores. This implies that teachers in high school only care whether or not their students make a decent grade on a test instead of actually learning the material. This seems to be an unfair judgment of teachers but due to state requirements is a sad but true fact. The article, “NEA Survey: Nearly Half of Teachers Consider Leaving Profession Due to Standardize Testing”, states that according to the NEA (National Education Association) survey, “a majority of teachers reported

I found De-testing and de-grading schools: Authentic alternatives to accountability and standardization by Bower and Thomas, an interesting read and consistent with the critiques of high stakes testing and assessment we’ve read about and watched in this class. It is a collection of essays from educators and stakeholders in the field. The book is broken up into distinct sections, the first focused on testing and the second on grading. A historical context regarding failures of testing and grading is also provided to give context to the current problems with high stakes assessment and grading. The main message presented in this book is that high stakes testing and assessments (grading) are not working and alternatives should be considered. Specifically, the law of No Child Left Behind is critiqued through out, especially in the first few chapters.

Educational reform is a subject frequently being evaluated, and it is currently needed more than ever. Due to high school programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, teaching has been emphasized through a series of tests. The problem with this, is that “a teacher can prep students for a standardized test, get a bump in scores, and yet not be providing a very good education” (Rose 21). Meaning, instructors may be knowledgeable on how to raise test scores, but their students can remain uneducated; There is not a direct relationship between the two. Furthermore, this way of education highly impedes non-cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, which are now needed for the current job market. In fact, a jump of twice as many

Our lives depend and revolve around the education we receive between the ages 5 and 18. Our system has set us up for failure from the earliest years. As stated in the earlier paragraph… it ranks our grades superior to what we have absorbed from the information we are given. Teachers will often administer busy work or grade for participation, though it may be beneficial to the students grade or easier for the teacher to grade... This method of teaching, too commonly practiced, sets the child up for failure when they go to take a final or standardized test and haven't truly learned the information. In Diane Ravitch’s piece, “On Her favorite Teacher,” she talks about how a teacher impacted her life with her teaching style, “Clearly she had multiple goals for her students, beyond teaching literature and grammar. She also was teaching about character and responsibility. These are not the sorts of things that appear on any standardized test.” These types of teachers that implement life lessons into educational ones and that put more emphasis on educating us than just simply letting students pass the class are teachers that lack in today's classroom.

“We have transformed schools into places characterized not by excitement and learning, but all too often by student disengagement, apathy, and in many cases, even active resistance to the lessons and experiences made available to them by their teachers,” commented San José State University professors Smith Grinell & Colette Rabin. This, no doubt, comes as a result of the United States’ recent push for Common Core Standards, where politicians take control of education and attempt to link teacher wages to student performance, consistently undermine teacher input, and implement a strict ‘teach-to-the-test” curriculum, where students are not encouraged to question the information told to them, but rather accept it and move on. Critical thinking and efficient teaching methods have been suppressed in the current U.S. educational system, and the U.S. is suffering: once one of the front runners in education, the U.S. has fallen to twenty-seventh place according to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).