It appears that testing is a waste of time, but in reality, it prepares students for future success. Another question that occurs is: What are students gaining from these different tests each year? Many people debate whether the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is considered to be pointless. Maybe these tests are teaching students accountability and responsibility, two vital tools for success in life. Within in the article, “No Child Left Behind: Test-Obsessed Education Won’t Move Us Ahead” the author, David Marshak, slashes the No Child Left Behind Act.
NCLB set forth a certain criteria to be met, but allowed the states to determine how they would accomplish it. Therefore, each state handles assessment and accountability differently. This makes it hard to show success or failure of the programs. Supporters and critics alike can cite research that supports their opinion. My opinion of NCLB is it is flawed, developmentally inappropriate, ill funded, ←and→ leaving more students, teachers, ←and→ schools behind than ever before because The tests have turned into the objective of classroom instruction rather than the measure of teaching ←and→ learning.
Nathan Nguyen Professor Mary Composition I 14 September 2012 In the article “The Case Against Grades,” Alfie Kohn argues that grades make students afraid of explore new things; tests and quizzes are not the ways to measure knowledge .“Assessment-based grading” creates an allusion on how well are students doing in a numerical way. The effects of grading can come in numerous ways. Kohn indicates three crucial conclusions of grading: decrease in self-motivation, diminish in taking scholarly risk and “reduce in quality of students’ thinking”. Don’t on the students, they’re only listening to the message; they’re rational. For many years, adults have send them the message success is more important than learning.
There are some major problems with using them. Students with high I.Q’s are expected to do better than the rest of their class, and on the flip side students with low I.Q.’s are expected to do worse. That is not always fair because students with low I.Q.’s might not get the attention needed simply because their teachers do not expect much from them. In the end there is no fairness to some. This leads to an ethical question of, is giving an intelligence test ethical?
By showing to the readers that he was once a public school teacher it helps them see him as an expert giving his own expert opinion. He stresses that the public school system is doing the youth of this generation an injustice. He does this through analyzing the goals of education, not schooling. He uses the third goal a lot which is to make each person their best that they can be. He also says the today’s school system suppresses the word genius.
Personally I agree with both authors but only up to a certain point. I agree with how Gatto describes the United States is falling further behind in education while he provides us with the contradictory thought that education may not be paramount to a person’s success (Gatto). With many of our greatest minds, having gone no further than secondary education, the key is to give our adolescents more chances to “let them manage themselves” (Gatto, 28) while trying to increase the achievements of people who are not born into the upper class. Like many social constructs, the elitist succeed, while others are left behind. Gatto contends that “schools really are laboratories of experimentation on young minds” (Gatto, 28).
NCLB was established so that students were not held back in a grade and were promoted to the next grade. I think this is a political aspect that is failing our students. If a student is not understanding the material or doesn’t pass the tests showing that they understand and can retain the information, I don’t believe that they should be promoted. I believe that it only hurts the students because they get more behind as they advance through the levels. The ethical issues that regard the high stakes testing is that it could be unfair to some students.
Your conclusion is that small class size indeed causes better grades. Wrong, because there is a fundamental problem with this conclusion; you did not account for 'intervening variables'! Could there be an intervening variable that is effecting this relationship between class size and student performance? Actually there can be many factors which are influencing this relationship. How about the influence of the teacher?
Although single sex education does have advantages, there are good arguments on the other side. Coeducation mirrors adult life, doesn’t promote gender segregation, and promotes a better learning environment. Although single sex education may be a credible option to certain professionals, coeducation offers more diversity and a more stimulating way of schooling to both boys and girls. Many coeducation opponents have stated that single sex schools offer a better learning environment for boys and girls separately because of the amount of distractions present in the classroom. Nonetheless, a single sex education does not mirror the adult world.
The following paper will argue against single-sex schools and display various reasons as to how they are counter-productive to student needs. A report published in the journal Science, states that students who attend single-sex schools are no better educated than those who attend co-ed schools. Plus, children are more likely to accept gender stereotypes when they go to an all-boys or all-girls school. "There's really no good evidence that single-sex schools are in any way academically superior, but there is evidence of a negative impact," said Lynn Liben, professor of psychology and education at Penn State and co-author of the study. "Kids' own occupational aspirations are going to be limited, and there could be long-term consequences where, for example, girls are used to being in roles only among other girls, then they have to face the real world where that's not the case."