I just read on New York Times the other day about the incentive that the Obama administration is offering the states to rely more on test scores in teacher evaluation. Something about 4 billion dollars to give to those states that comply or even change the laws to reflect this attitude.
Argh!
I never liked NCLB, and this new development is really bothering me. Do politicians really think that "bringing up the rear end" is all we need to prepare our society for the future? Yes of course many state tests also mark students as simply being proficient or advanced, but as least in our state the "advanced" is still so easy for many truly advanced students that it's a big mistake I think to use this as a yardstick to measure performance. Plus oru school spends so much time now on test prep. Plus the standardized tests are always very limited in measuring academic performance...
Will things ever get better? Sometimes I look at my two kids I feel that I need to homeschool them. But not everyone has this option and not every kid wants to leave th4 opportunity of socializing with another 50 kids everyday. Yeah, my DS goes to school just to be with friends...
What can we parents do at this point? I highly doubt that the politicians don't see the problem, after all many of them are smart people (well, some of them). But why don't them try something better?
