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

To: SilentZ who wrote (370038)	2/5/2008 5:55:11 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 1572369

This is a whole different discussion. So maybe be we can bring it up later. I know there are downsides to the test but there are a lot of upsides to it too.

To: SilentZ who wrote (370038)	2/5/2008 6:31:13 PM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 1572369

Z, It makes students actually learn less. And we're not just talking "sculpture and middle eastern basket weaving" (which are not bad things), but social studies, science, and critical thinking. You are completely wrong. I have a 4th grader and she has a lot of friends in both public and private schools that are older. These tests are the only things that make students to actually study, and be tested against an objective standard. This was especially true of public school kids, who normally just slide from grade to grade automatically. So these public school kids were actually studying for the first time, their parents were signing them up for tutoring, to do well on the test. And what do you think these tests are? Some kind of irrelevant test subject irrelevant to their school curriculum? No, they are math, reading, English language, grammar (also science that is mandatory in some grades voluntary in other grades). This is just summary of their regular school material they covered during the school year. The anti-tests jihadists (NEA and their lackeys) make it sound that - someone who prepares for the test is somehow missing something - you can do well on the test without having a well rounded education - you would do poorly on the test while being proficient and have well rounded education. All of it is false. It is just an empty rhetoric. But there is an issue of competition. The school where my kids go (which happens to be an excellent school) did not prepare for the test at all, and used it purely as a diagnostic tool. But other, competing schools did prepare their kids specifically for the test, so this year, the school had a couple of practice tests - just to make sure that the kids are familiar with the types of questions and know how to budget their time better. Joe