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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (320274)	1/12/2007 5:30:30 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573911

findarticles.com csmonitor.com reason.com "In New York City, it's "just about impossible" to fire a bad teacher, says schools chancellor Joel Klein. " "The inability to fire the bad and reward the good is the biggest reason schools fail the kids. Lack of money is often cited the reason schools fail, but America doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years. Test scores and graduation rates stayed flat. New York City now spends an extraordinary $11,000 per student. That's $220,000 for a classroom of twenty kids. Couldn't you hire two or three excellent teachers and do a better job with $220,000?" textbookleague.org Absolutely they've [textbooks] been dumbed down. I think what we've heard a lot of, throughout the country, is that there needed to be an image of American students doing well. In order for us to show them as being smarter, let's dummy down what we're teaching them. You'll appear to be smarter, even though you're not. [See "Textbooks Too Easy, Too Dull, Experts Say," by Nancy Montgomery, in The Seattle Times for 3 March 1996.] greatschools.net The number one problem, many critics say, is that the tests themselves (especially the national, norm-referenced tests) are "dumbing down" the curriculum. Growing numbers of students, teachers and parents express concern that the increased emphasis on testing is encouraging a curriculum focused on rote learning and producing students who can respond to simple test questions but cannot think critically or apply their learning to new circumstances. First thing I would look at would have to be a tossup between the tenured teachers' system and the monies poured into sports and the effects on student athletes who the rest of the student body look up to.