Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
I would be happy with just literacy. I volunteer at the local Juvenile Hall (sometimes not so local). These kids write me letters and their lack of writing skills is unbelievable. They don't know the pronunciation of some letters. And they all have graduated from Junior High School. Why should anyone be able to graduate from the eighth grade if they can't read or write?
I try and explain to them the consequences of their property crimes, which requires math, and when I start referring to multiplying and dividing I leave a lot of these kids behind.
The obvious solution to this problem is to just test them. If they don't pass the test they don't graduate. But then I go to school board meetings and I hear the same B.S. that I hear here. "Teachers will just teach for the test". In this case that would mean that they are actually teaching something what is more than they are doing now.
At the basic reading and writing level I don't know how you could come up with a test that wouldn't force these kids to get more knowledge than they are getting now.
Without the test the teachers just move them through the system. "Teaching to the Test" is just a mantra used by teachers so they aren't forced to teach the students.
Wouldn't anyone argue that a teacher should give absolutely no tests? Of course not. How else would they know that the kids are learning? Yet at the same time people argue that we don't give standardized tests, but without these tests how do we know the teachers are teaching? We don't and as a consequence they aren't.
There is simply no reason to not test.
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You're using math to explain why theft is bad?
