The Washington Post posted an article from a recently retired high school teacher apologizing for the poor students he has had to pass on to colleges, but argues that their poor performance is due to the time spent figuring out how to answer multiple choice tests, not how to think at a deeper level about subject matter. He pins blame on the fact that education policy is not set by educators, but by corporations that benefit from the use of tests because they design and implement them:
During my years in the classroom I tried to educate other adults about the realities of schools and students and teaching. I tried to help them understand the deleterious impact of policies that were being imposed on our public schools. I blogged, I wrote letters and op-eds for newspapers, and I spent a great deal of time speaking with and lobbying those in a position to influence policy, up to and including sitting members of the US House of Representatives and Senate and relevant members of their staffs. Ultimately, it was to little avail, because the drivers of the policies that are changing our schools—and thus increasingly presenting you with students ever less prepared for post-secondary academic work—are the wealthy corporations that profit from the policies they help define and the think tanks and activist organizations that have learned how to manipulate the levers of power, often to their own financial or ideological advantage.A useful look at how public policy is actually shaped. I'll catch up on what the legislature is doing regarding education policy - and assessment (the STARR test especially) soon.
