Teaching the test seems to be conducive to improving test taking skills but real academic progression is not always represented. Additionally, Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation in a way to prepare students for life and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests.
Creating this bigger gap in funding only hinders a school from achieving academic excellence and eventually causes teachers to lose jobs and schools to shut down. Furthermore to cover shortfalls at least 22 states have scaled back K-12 funding and at least 24 have made cuts in higher education for fiscal year 2012 including reducing, or eliminating, personnel and programs vital to the most vulnerable populations: lower-income and minority students (Ceasar., Watanabe., T., & Times, L. A., 2011). Students are being pushed through a system that allows them to chose their electives such as, the time spent learning how to cook and drive, which counts as much toward a high school diploma as the time spent studying mathematics, English,
There might be some benefit keeping the students around until they turn 18, but the cons outweigh what’s the best interest to these kids. They disrupt other students, teachers, and are unmotivated to reach their potential, often find themselves stuck on a daily basis. Dropping out is the only choice they can have and limiting this very choice only makes things worse. Although I agree with Chapman, I think that Obama serves good intentions with this proposal but the idea may be thought not well enough. I believe that you cannot force kids into learning and even doing so, they will have a harder time attending classes than before.
This is because the elaborated code is used within textbooks, by teachers and is the language an examiner expects the child to use within their exam. Early socialisation means middle class children are already fluent using the elaborated code meaning they are more likely to succeed. However, Bernstein recognises that working class children fail because schools fail to teach them how to use the elaborated speech code; not because they are culturally deprived. Bereiter and Engelmann claim that the language used in lower class homes is deficient. They described that working class families use gestures, single word sentences and disjointed phrases when communicating.
SAT scores are declining. I am convinced that one of the reasons is that the school day and year are too short. Without additional time, it is virtually impossible for students behind grade level -- particularly poor and minority students -- to catch up. Longer school days can lead to fewer crimes committed by young people and a decline in teen pregnancy. An extended school day gives administrators the ability to ensure children get a well-rounded education.
Dela Cruz 1 One big issue we have in our country is the United States education because our American children seems to be falling behind. In Michael Moore's essay, Idiot Nation, shows an evidence to why our children are struggling and not getting the education that they are suppose to. After reading his essay, this concludes that our kids are struggling and falling behind for the following reasons: library loss because of budget cuts, our kids are being bribed for wrong reasons and not all kids are getting the freedom that they deserve. "The U.S has been perceived upon as a country of hard workers, overachievers, and gifted people all having vigorous work ethic." [1] Different people from different countries look up to America not just the country of freedom but also the “land of oppurtunity”.
One pitfall is teaching to the test, parents and teachers feels that the NCLB encourages, and rewards, teaching children to score well on the test, rather than teaching with a primary goal of learning. As a result, teachers are pressured to teach a narrow set of test-taking skills and a test-limited range of knowledge. A few more pitfalls are: problems with the standardized tests, teachers’ qualification standards, and failure to address the reason for lack of achievement just to name a few. This often resulted in teacher discouragement, role ambiguity, and superficial responses to administrative goals. A few strengths are: standards are set for teacher qualifications, NCLB emphasizes reading, writing, and math, and NCLB requires schools to focus on providing quality education to students who are often underserved, including children with disabilities, from low-income families, non-English speakers, as well as African-Americans and Latinos.
Many behavioral problems and some health issues can also be linked to working in high school. Working in high school can cause more harm than good. Many students experience a drop in grades, when they have a job in high school. A job requires them to work at certain hours, usually after school and takes away from the time they study and do homework. Studies have shown that students who work often do badly on test and quizzes.
Working class children are less likely to succeed because they are less likely to be found in nursery schools, less likely to go to university and more likely to be poor readers when they start school, more likely to be in lower sets and streams in secondary school, more likely to leave school early, more likely to underachieve at GCSEs and a level, more likely to be excluded and suspended .This is because the middle-class culture children are adequately prepared for school, but it's totally reverse for working-class culture, it basically fails to prepare children adequately for educational success. It is often said that intellectual development is vital in the younger years of a child life, this refers to a child's ability to solve problems and apply concepts and ideas. Bernstein and Young argue that Middle-class families will be able to afford toys that stimulate the mind, books and pre educational essentials, whereas the working class may struggle to buy such equipment, and therefore have a disadvantage compared to the Middle-class family. Language is also associated with a child's progress. Early socialisation is what gives children this manor of speech and Bernstein argues it makes children feel at home, in a school surrounding and allows children to express themselves clearly and efficiently.
In a few short words, the status and value of school exams, not to mention the effort put in by young people across the UK, had been totally undermined. If GCSE students have been reading the "dumbing down" comments, who knows how many may have changed their mind and abandoned their education. Lets face it, who wants to take on two years worth of work to have their efforts so easily dismissed by statistics? The negative way in which the press reports on exams is sadly something we've just come to expect. But what a lot of young people don't realise is that it's not just education where our achievements are diminished by the media.