The recent report that students leaving high school today aren't doing much better than they did in the 1970s seems like bad news at first glance. Dive into it a little deeper, however, and we see this.
The news was brighter for younger students and for blacks and Hispanics, who had the greatest gain in reading and math scores since the 1970s, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly referred to as the Nation’s Report Card.
“In some ways, the findings are full of hope. Today’s children ages 9 and 13 are scoring better overall than students at those ages in the early ’70s,” said Brent Houston, principal of the Shawnee Middle School in Oklahoma and a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which administers the tests.
Does this mean the achievement is closing? Possibly. A big part of the reason for this is the Common Core program started by the states, not the federal government, although it does have the full support of President Obama. The key thrust of the CC standards is to develop students' critical thinking skills and not simply test their short term memories. This leads to what we call in the biz "enduring understandings" and the best instructors know how to achieve this goal.
It's going to be very exciting and interesting to watch how our test scores rise over the next decade due to the changes being made now in our education system. It's about time!
6 comments:
Student debt crisis?
Now here's where the real immorality kicks in. The skyrocketing cost of a college education is a classic unintended consequence of government intervention. Colleges have responded to the availability of easy federal money by doing what subsidized industries generally do: Raising prices to capture the subsidy. Sold as a tool to help students cope with rising college costs, student loans have instead been a major contributor to the problem.
That clanking sound? M's cognitive dissonance avoidance system.
Yo, M & N - remember that bitching about FFL's losing guns?
The govt doesn't appear to be much better.
U.S. Park Police couldn’t account for hundreds of weapons in its inventory, according to a new Inspector General report, which found that the agency’s firearms could be vulnerable to “theft or misuse.”
Hello? Is this thing on? tap, tap, tap
Those articles don't fit the narrative - they shall ignore them.
Most people would say they hear crickets chirping, but it sounds more like the scurrying of little roach feet to me.
Yeah, I gotta say the cowardly silence says so so very much.
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