I like how the author of the original article likes to blame the testing instead of the teachers. When a student is caught cheating does the test get blamed?
For all the gnashing of teeth over the testing that resulted from No Child Left Behind it strikes me as one of the least onerous ways to measure teacher performance under the current structure of our public education system. Teachers are bitching and moaning about it but they sure as hell wouldn't like what true oversight would look like.
The feds are giving out way too much money to way too many small fiefdoms for its effectiveness to be accurately tracked without a serious commitment on the part of individual schools and school systems. Unfortunately I think the primary thing those schools and school districts are committed to is getting more money from Uncle Sugar.
Kaneman, that was an interesting article you posted but it makes a big assumption without backing it up. It assumes the kids have the interest and ambition to do more than the teachers are giving them, only the teachers don't want to. I'm not sure that is the case for many of these students. The article also doesn't back up your premise that it is an active conspiracy to make the population dumb. With that author the blame is put on teacher laziness/incompetence/motivation. The article also readily states there are AP classes available and I can only guess with the way they describe the regular classes the standard to enter AP classes is not eating paste.
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