Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Learning history - out. Practice tests - in.

Mountain View High School may be one of the better public high schools in the nation. But they are not immune to the dictates of the Every Child Left Behind Act either. These dictates say that Mountain View High School must score better every year on the standardized tests mandated by ECLBA -- or else. Even though they already score in the top 5% of the nation.

So starting next year, Mountain View High School's award-winning Facing History class, which brings together Holocaust and other genocide survivors with students, is history. Instead, the time will be spent taking practice tests in order to get test scores up. Because, as we all know, taking practice tests is more important than learning history...

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

4 comments:

  1. One of the more vivid memories I have of school involved meeting a holocast survivor as part of my 6th grade history class. Seeing those numbers tattooed on her arm provided a very real view into the past.

    History isn't just about learning places, names, and dates; it is about understanding why, and I'm afraid that point is missed much too often. :-(

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is no way to test you seeing numbers tattooed on her arm, thus it is not education. Only things we can test are education. That is why teaching children how to think critically and evaluate what they see and hear is not education. We can't test it on a fill-in-the-bubble test, thus it isn't education, it's, uhm, just a waste of time.

    -- Badtux the Republican Education Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  3. History is a lot of monkey shit dust left in the ruts of time as we travel though time and space. Hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Really, what the hell is going on?! We must want a nation with uneducated young people: They'll do nicely for the endless "preemptive" wars we have scheduled.

    People who can think critically may -- gasp! -- question authority! We certainly can't have that now, can we?

    Mixter

    ReplyDelete

Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.

WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.