Posted by Rick Denney on September 08, 2002 at 00:45:25:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: The Swing of the Pendulum posted by Doug Whitten on September 07, 2002 at 00:04:07:
Tests used to guide instruction? I hope not. Tests are used to verify that objectives are being met, not to determine a course of action if they are not. First, we must define the objectives properly, and we haven't done that. We aren't even close.
At best, testing will expose the weakness in schools for what it is. But I fear that the main motivation at the district level for testing is to justify the status quo. That is why we see so much teaching to the tests (and cheating on them!). That isn't the purpose of the tests, of course. But the tests are being interpreted or manipulated by those who would be exposed if the tests show failure--a fox is in the henhouse.
The situation will only improve when parents want it to badly enough to personally see to the education of their children by whatever means they choose, even though it means they pay taxes for one school and tuition to another.
And it isn't a "white" thing as suggested by a recent poster. Most of the kids in the inner-city parochial schools are not white, but those schools are doing a better job than public schools that serve those students' peers.
As to schools being a rite of passage--I'd be happy if schools would just put the work in front of the students and make them do it. A big part of the problem is that we feel compelled to make school entertaining, which means we take away the drudgery of learning. If you believe there is no drudgery required in learning, then you haven't been playing your scales.
Is it "leaving a child behind" if he leaves school at 16 and learns how to fix cars? (He has to be literate to do that, by the way.) If getting rich selling drugs is the alternative, and there's no moral code to stop him, do we think we will get him to stay in school through entertainment?
Rick "who thinks we overvalue intellectual training and undervalue working in the three-dimensional world--until our cars break" Denney