Friday, March 16, 2012

Education in the News

State Will Overhaul Its Handling of Test-Tampering Complaints

My response to this item in The New York Times:
 
There’s something wrong with this picture. We train teachers so they can teach our children, but then throw them off-center by making them teach to the test. Then, we put them under the gun with a nationwide teacher-evaluation movement. We humiliate them further by publishing the results. Now, we have to watch them carefully to make sure they don’t tamper with those tests. The teachers, distracted from their craft, respond by giving too much homework.  The child can’t do all the work, so the teacher calls the parent. The parent comes to the school and feels humiliated. This throws the parent off-center.  The parent starts tampering with the homework by doing it him or herself.  Wouldn’t we be better off if we just let teachers be in charge of their classrooms and let parents be in charge of their homes? 

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