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.
Does standardized testing improve education in public schools? Terrie Lynn Bittner the author of Homeschoolers Should Not Take Standardized Test would argue that it has not been proven that these tests help public school students. The author states that testing is nothing more than routine memorization and not true learning. So, homeschoolers shouldn’t have to take standardized tests because the parents do not need testing to see their children’s progress. With homeschooling, the parents are the ones teaching their children, so they know their progress, strengths and weaknesses.
Mathematics and Science are subjects that students need to take and have difficulty struggling to pass. Unfortunately, many schools’ creative arts programs are being cut simply because the
That year only nine out of ten students passed the exam. 1. Those who support CAHSEE have claimed that the large number of students who fail the test, question the significance of passing grades in California high schools. But opponents of the exam feel that it is not fair to put so much significance on a single test after years of passing grades have been given. The reason that students should not have to take the exit exam to graduate from high school is because standardized tests only evaluate certain subjects, tests do not truly reflect what the person has learned, and tests do not do anything to prepare kids for the future.
Welsh’s article discusses the difference between American students and Asian students. The Asian students identified that their biggest factor behind academic success was “studying hard”. I believe that many American students have lost their internal drive and motivation to study hard, including myself, with technology now and it being so easy to cheat it becomes almost unnecessary. Insufficient teaching is not the major factor to blame nor is poor study skills or the lack of there of. I believe that the problem behind American students not studying is solely due to the lack of determination to study and excel in schoolwork.
One of the arguments of co-education is the idea that it provides too many distractions for students. Several scholars have argued that these distractions have led to less attention on school work and class participation, due to girls and boys trying to impress each other. Furthermore, it has also been argued that students who are intimidated by the opposite sex may also be affected by low performance and low grades. Many educators believe that single-sex education does not enforce any type of gender-based stereotypes or adolescent subculture. Due to this, single-sex schools have been established to combat these issues.
This bought on Marketisation where schools try to attract other students by raising standards to show they are most successful. On the other hand, sociologists disagree as most educational reforms have not helped all students, only some or wasn’t very effective enough to help improve educational experiences. For example, the Foster Act wasn’t very helpful as the teaching was dire and students were less successful therefore resulted them in having weak qualifications and bad experiences. The Butler Act system with the 11+ exam was mostly based on middle class children therefore they had a better chance than working class. This was unequal as they had an advantage even though the test was the same.
Passing a standardized test is a skill that can be taught, but does not truly measure what a student has learned in the classroom; therefore standardized tests should not be used as a tool to measure students knowledge because students have more to offer than just filling in bubbles. Standardized tests don’t provide information that is useful in the future, resulting in students losing interest in learning because its not fun. The average student does not enjoy being cooped up in classroom for four hours filling in bubbles. This is when students think that the school is a reflection of standardized tests and they no longer want to learn. The information used in standardized tests has no importance in the real world.
It’s become quite obvious that “the rules of high school turn out not to be the rules of life” (Source 2). While sources 2-4 each acknowledge this statement, they all believe the American high school education fails to prepare young adults for multiple different reasons. Leon Botstein (Source 2) attributes the poor education to shallow values, while Todd Gitlin (Source 3) claims it’s a lack of content and culture in education, and David S. Broder (Source 4) believes the problem lies in a lack of discipline. All of these problems show that ultimately high school leaves young adults ill-prepared for the real world and workforce and thus I believe a high school that emphasizes vocational education with training in specific job skills and required internships would better prepare me to participate in a global economy. Vocational education emphasizes skills, knowledge, and general know-how for specific jobs.
Morse (1992) believes that the longer students are on vacation, the less material they retain. She further states that year-round education can improve the academic performance of students who cannot depend on their home care to help them with learning. This sounds logical, but Morse gives no supporting evidence that year-round education actually improves students' academic performance. In fact, Greenfield (1994) found that although teachers and parents may have observed some improvement, the results of standardized tests showed no such improvement. In addition, Peltier (1991) notes that when the scores of year-round school students were compared to those of traditional calendar students, no significant difference was seen.