So, if students ar taking tougher courses and getting better grades but are still scoring miserably on national tests, isn't that an indication that, as they say in accounting circles, the books are being cooked?
"I think that we are sleeping through a crisis," said Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David Driscoll, a governing board member. He said the low test scores should push lawmakers and educators to enact school reforms.
The new reading scores show no change since 2002, the last time the test was given.
"We should be getting better. There's nothing good about a flat score," Winick said.
"We should be getting better." No kidding. Wait, I know! Let's spend half a billion dollars on buildings.
I know, I know. That was a cheap shot. The two issues are unrelated. But, jeez. It's become clear that just increasing spending on education isn't the answer. The fact that nobody has declared an academic crisis requiring half a billion dollars to remedy can't go unremarked on, though.
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Agreed. We need to be looking for actual solutions. Throwing money at ANY bureaucracy never solves anything - it just funds more bureaucracy.
I can't find the link now, but NPR did a story about a Microsoft designed, but locally funded school in Philly. It is very high tech and cost $50 million to build and equip. It also uses some different teaching methods - so it will be very interesting to see how well it works in 4 years.
We have GOT to break out of this mentality that having a person standing in front of 20-30 kids, with chairs in neat little rows, is the only way of teaching. Maybe kids really aren't little robots that take input in and put out units of economy?
>"We should be getting better."
>No kidding. Wait, I know! Let's
>spend half a billion dollars on
>buildings.
>
>I know, I know. That was a
>cheap shot. The two issues are
>unrelated. But, jeez.
I don't think the two issues are unrelated. A half a billion in education money targeted to buildings can't help but lead to sins of omission in other education quarters.
The supply of wealth for education is obviously limited; there are no blank checks being written. So a half billion for buildings is bound mean oxygen was sucked away from other budgets somewhere.