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Race to the Top Should Be Left Behind
"What's the argument of the paragraph?"
Silence.
Written by a former student, the paragraph implied that a rise in American obesity is linked to increased dollars spent on fast food.
I called on a student. "Advertising?" she said, a word that appeared in the paragraph only once. Why did this student, a hard-working athlete, so badly misread the paragraph? Because instead of really interpreting the passage, she used a little clue. "Advertising" had been mentioned in the thesis just a paragraph earlier.
Unfortunately, strategies such as hers aren't uncommon in the college classroom. Within the same lesson, another student made quick assumptions about a sentence's meaning because of its first words. My colleagues and I often swap stories like these, in which our students use faulty shorthand in place of critical thinking.
We teach students who didn't pass the Analytical Writing Placement Exam, and our task is often to undo these habits so students can learn how to really, truly read. By the end of the semester, students often report that they learned more in one semester than in four years of high school. But many of them don't pass their first essays. At first, they're shocked that skills they used in high school now won't earn them passing grades.
It's hard, though, to fault the students. They're employing test-taking strategies they've learned all their No-Child-Left-Behind lives. When standardized test scores come attached with high stakes, teachers are forced to arm their students with speedy decoding in lieu of critical thinking. Unfortunately, such teaching will only be perpetuated under the Obama administration's Race to the Top program.
I started my teaching career in Teach for America, which places teachers in low-income schools, during the dawn of No Child Left Behind. Faced with tests that could determine whether our students graduated, my panicked administrators encouraged me to teach tricks. "If a writing prompt is three questions long," my department head told me, "make students turn each question into a statement. Statements should become topic sentences." If the students followed the format, the essays would read like a series of nearly identical paper dolls. Passing paper dolls.
Under such pressures, students can't be prepared for college-level work. As Diane Ravitch recently wrote, "ACT found that more than three-quarters of this year's graduates - who were in fifth grade when NCLB was passed - are not ready for college-level studies." Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education under George W. Bush, was once a champion of No Child Left Behind. In her recent book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," she writes, "I started to see the danger of the culture of testing that was spreading through every school, community, town, city, and state."
By requiring states to evaluate teachers based on test scores, Race to the Top will only promote "the culture of testing." It will encourage teachers to emphasize low-level skills rather than true learning, which will only exacerbate the struggles of underprepared college students. The sooner we rid these tests of unneeded high stakes, the sooner our teachers can emphasize the truth: that real reading, writing and learning is messy, and no shorthand tricks will do.
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34 Comments so far
Show AllOur school system is used to socialize and certify. It's a paper chase you have to participate in to join the ranks of consumers and tax payers in America. There are some great teachers but the system is flawed.
Hoa binh
Most of the "great teachers" don't have the "magic credentials" thus cannot teach in our indoctrination system... of course, the powers that be don't want the youth educated... they just want them to know enough to push the hamburger shaped button...
I am a teacher of history and writing and am noticing the effect of teaching for the test on my students. Many have an inability to "connect the dots," or make correlations between interconnected ideas. I have seen answers to essay questions as ms. Kim notes where the student just rephrases the question into a statement. When i ask for more information, they don't have a clue. For the sake of the critical thinking ability of our upcoming future leaders, we need to flush "no child left behind" down the toilet. We cannot teach for the test and teach critical thinking without compromising both.
In Chicago Arne Duncan, former head of Chicago Public Schools, enacted the Chicago Chamber of Commerce plan which closed neighborhood schools over black and Latino parents protests to open charter schools which aided gentrification helping real estate developers make profits.
Duncan has put these same terrible ideas in Race to the Top. Yes, the author is right that standardized testing encourages rote memorization, not critical thinking needed for college, and makes children less ready for college. Race to the Top also pits states against each other as if education was a competition with only a few states to win and most lose--just a terrible idea. Only the few--the rich, the white--will win while the colored, most of the middle class, and working class will lose. Race to the Top makes schools more racially segregated and increases class inequality. Race to the Top assaults teachers' unions and opens the way for corporations to make huge profits over education. Corporations make profits in developing those tests and in running schools; the only ones who benefit from Race to the Top. Race to the Top assaults our democracy as in Chicago as it forces states to open schools to charters which lessen parents' and community's voice in education. Race to the Top is for corporations only enabling them to dismantle public education.
Teachers should realize Race to the Top is an assault on all teachers. Teachers should write essays and articles critical of race to the top and to get all education unions and associations to ask for ending Race to the Top. Also parents should fight against being made completely powerless in their children's education so parents should fight for having a say so and defend the public schools.
Students should fight against the worsening education they get in Race to the Top.
Obama's education plan, Race to the Top, is a sop to the Republicans, trying to get them to support something so he can run for reelection as the "bipartisan president". It is not unlike the new coastal drilling for oil policies: sops to the right wing.
However, the sops that were larded on the GOP trying to get their support for a decent health care reform didn't work. No Republican signed on and the obsequious offering of compromises only encouraged Blue Dog Dems to hold back their support. The result is a reform without even a public option, much less single-payer, and little in the way of a mechanism for cost control.
IMO, the Obama administration has never stopped campaigning. In the face of financial and environmental disasters, with substantial majorities in both houses of Congress, the electoral mandate to govern was diluted in an attempt please everyone. But the ratings went down anyway! That's what excessive compromising accomplished.
NO CHILD LEFT WITHOUT A KICK IN THE BEHIND
THis article and all others about NCLB miss the point.
NCLB sold all of public education to corporations, who will run the schools for profit.
The tests were/are only a mechanism to phase in the takeover.
All talk about Race to the Top is a smokescreen!!!
Let me say it again, All talk is a smokescreen.
Every year, schools were "challenged" to get a certain % of kids to pass.
THose who don't pass get to "choose" which corporation runs their school.
And...
THE CORPORATIONS NEVER HAVE TO MEET ANY STANDARD!
They just keep getting to run the show.
At first, the % was low, so it looked like help to bad schools.
But the % goes up every year.
In 2014, a school must get 97% of students to pass.
SOUND LIKE A CHALLENGE OR A SET UP?
So, look forward to McDonalds.
Where every task is reduced to a simple step, like putting on the mustard.
And high priced teachers will be replaced with low wage, no benefit, tutors.
GUARANTEED!
The whole system sucked anyway.
Go www.sudval.org
Real inspiration about democracy and education.
A 100% student run educational environment for 4 - 18 year olds.
We sell our kids so short, not trusting in their true nature.
Which is "brilliant" and "capable" and "social" by the way.
If you grow up a kid to NOT trust in themselves to lead their lives...
If you tell a child for the first 18 years that YOU know what's best, not the child...
IS IT ANY WONDER PEOPLE DON'T TRUST THEMSELVES AND ARE UNTRUSTWORTHY when they grow up?
Sudbury continually reinforces "YOU know the answers to your life"
"The answers are inside you"
"It is your responsibility to make steps in your life."
"It is your responsibility to create social order"
I challenge everyone to read and listen to sudbury literature.
Especially read graduation thesis
Let's grow some happy healthy responsible brilliant kids.
Get inspired
Go sudval!
What is considered the most important undertaking in 4 years of high school? What activity has the most student dollars spent on it? THE PROM Beam me up
I retired from teaching seven years ago. At that time and for years before, students were judged on the basis of something called "student achievement," a code word for a test score on a standardized state assessment. This reliance on student achievement (something, by the way, that Diane Ravitch championed during her professional career) dates back to the eighties, if not before. It is built on the assumption that educational outcomes can be measured by means of standardized testing, much as the wealth of a country can be measured by dollars of GNP. At that time there was an effort to create portfolio assessment, an examination of student essays, artwork, poems, original experiments-all taken together. That, however, was deemed too difficult (and expensive) to administer.
My point is that reliance upon standard tests predates Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and even Reagan. It is based upon the idea that business provides a fair and decent model for improving education. Indeed, the appointment of Arne Duncan underlines this recurring emphasis that educators are incapable of educational leadership and that businessmen, lawyers, and generals have more ability than practitioners in the field. Of course the assumption is wrong--that non-educators know more about schools than school people do. We career teachers have insights into how young people think, what they are capable of, how true understanding of concepts develops, and how to obtain feedback on learning. However, one of the myths of this country has to do with the power of business to create wealth--Edison, Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie--and education has had to take a humble back seat to business people who have the bully pulpit and pontificate about educational reform. In the end, of course, it is all pissing into the wind. They don't have a clue about what is best for children.
In Edmonton Alberta the school system as I know it offers a variety of School types each emphasizing different aptitudes.
Under the old system if you lived in a Given neighborhood you attentend a specific school and what was taught at each school was more or less the same.
Under this new system you can take your child to any school but each school (or group) emphasizes different skills. This means some are seen as "musical schools" some are "Sports Schools" , some "Art Schools" and some "Academic Schools". This not to say that the basics are not taught in each as Alberta students rank amongst the highest in Canada in the basics and Canada ranks in the top 5 in the world in the same.
Now I have nver attended such a school nor do I have children but as an ex teacher what are your views towards such a school system?
Down here in the states we call these schools "magnet schools." They can emphasize science and math, the arts, or other areas. At the high school level, some can offer wonderful opportunities to students. The Bronx High School of Science (I believe I have that right) produces many students who are mentored by practicing scientists and mathematicians and make tangible advances in science and math even before students enter college.
I am all in favor of offering students choices--as many as possible--but mainly through the public school system. In my small American town, we offer Montessori, Advanced Placement classes, the possibility of attending college classes as a high school junior, a high school experience aimed at at-risk students, various apprenticeship-like experiences open to high school juniors, a math-science curriculum for those with that interest. All of this is offered through the public school system. As you can see, the meme that schools are unresponsive to change is not accurate.
No Child Left Behind/Race To The Top was alive and well before Dubbya and The Prez took office. I was there. It was all about "achievement" and "scores." Learning was never an issue.
I'm not knocking the idea of public education. I am most certainly not for privatizing education, but that corporate mentality has seeped into public schools.
Thank God I learned to enjoy reading.
It's a game most kids of all races are losing. The only reason the rich kids win is because they don't need to be educated. They have the connections needed to get cushy jobs.
The teaching of history is a real tragedy. All kids get is a whitewashed, candy coated view of what happened in American and elsewhere. I think we'd go a ways towards solving a lot of problems here if Zinn's A People's History of the United States became required reading.
No child left behind, Race to the top, just another corporate smoke screen being bought hook, line and sinker by the American public. Business and government only want your children smart enough to know when to start and stop the machine or how many rounds to load into the magizine.
I love Obama. I love Race to the Top. If you have a problem with anything our Commander in Chief advocates, you are a race-baiting bigot. Just keep on collecting your welfare, disability, and unemployment checks. Let these good times roll. Who needs a tax base when Superman is president? We always have been and always will be a Great Nation. God bless the handsome Barack and his beautiful Michelle, and all his friends like Oprah Winfrey. God bless America.
Furst that story about the Pope, and now hear's another artical about childrens' behinds. Hay -- we don't need mo education or to understand no paragrafs -- all we need is to be able to listen to Fox news and remember what they sed so we can tell the dumb liberl people. All we need to know about kids' behinds is to put them to work doing the yard chores, get them sitting in a pue on Sunday, and then get them into uniform. That's what America is about -- not this elete school stuff. If you need to know anything just ask your boss.
"The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." -- Steve Biko
No Child Left Behind is just a way to destroy public education and replace it with private schools. And that's exactly what it's doing.
The politicians can look like they're doing something, and the elites get a dumbed-down public that can be controlled and exploited easily. Our elected officials can also get a share of the profit stream from the charter schools that replace the public schools, which is what's happening here in LA with our mayor and his cronies.
I believe many reich-wing christian voters (and they always vote, as their pastor tells them to) support this, as they want to use taxpayer money to send their kids to private christian madrases; where they will teach their kids whatever they want...
The Obama admin is fast tracking the demise of
Public Education. He is a corporate shill,
that is his job.
Yet, liberals and progressives will continue
to support him, it is puzzeling
This whole misadventure in education deform with its idea that we evaluate students with standardize tests an we evaluate teachers with how well students do on standardized tests is an assault on students, teachers and principals.
I've heard lots of concerned reflection on how this is an assault on students and teachers. I've heard little on how it is an assault on principals.
It used to be that teachers did the evaluation of students. Teachers are on the front line and know best what is going on with their students and how they are doing.
Somewhere we got the meme that most teachers are bad and not to be trusted. So we can't let them be in charge of evaluating the students and more importantly we need a tool to see who are the bad teachers.
In a good education system the principal is the one who evaluates the teachers based on continuing observation, continuing consultation and continuing supervision. In a system like this the principal spends time with the teachers and with the students.
All of this deform, though, loads paperwork after paperwork on our principals, taking them out of a hands-on supervisory role and into a business-like managerial role. The result is principals overwhelmed with directives from "above" and unable to do the work that got them in education in the first place. The result is teachers on the frontlines with no real support or caring supervision except what they can give each other.
It's time to return to letting principals be principals.
Another well written, academic post. Well structured and spot on.
I concur, wholeheartedly.
yohocoma-I attended high school from '88-'92. They used to have posters (framed under class so they wouldn't be written on or torn down) advertising snack foods, acne remedies, and tennis shoes with platitudes from various celebrities telling us to "stay in school."
Then, every now and then in homeroom, they'd hand out free samples of Old Spice to the boys and Teen Spirit to the girls.
And then they pushed engineering as "the career of the future."
If you guys want to take a peek at what's happening in the Detroit school system take a look at the link below. The model is being used in many other cities.
Disaster capitalism hits the academic front in the guise of philanthropy and liberal gentrification. Katrina in slow motion.
Detroit schools plan: Total transformation
See link here:
http://progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=105253
Here's another article:
Vulture Philanthropy Descends on Detroit Schools
From Jack Gerson to Oakland teachers:
Using the school district's financial debt as the excuse to put it under the control of a state-appointed dictator recommended and trained by Eli Broad. The local school board is stripped of its authority and reduced to advisory votes. The state appointee immediately implements a program of school closures. layoffs, and more charter schools. Does this sound like Oakland circa 2003? Well, it's deja vu all over again.
The city is Detroit. The new school czar is Robert Bobb, former Oakland City Manager who went through the Broad Urban Superintendents Academy a few years back (following in the footsteps of Randy Ward, Kim Statham and Vincent Matthews). Bobb has emerged as the $260,000 / year (plus $84,000 in moving expenses) state-appointed tyrant of Detroit Public Schools. The campaign to exterminate public education in Detroit is even more savage than what's been done here in Oakland. Read Diane Bukowski's account in the Michigan Citizen:
By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen
DETROIT — The alliance to completely dismantle the Detroit Public School system is rapidly growing, including both foes and ostensible friends.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s DPS czar Robert Bobb has announced that Detroit’s children can expect to see at least 50 more schools close in the coming year, accompanied by thousands of lay-offs, to offset an alleged $306 million deficit.
“The unions aren’t involved so far in discussions on the closing process,” Phil Schloop, Business Agent for Operating Engineers International Union Local 547, said. “We know schools are going to have to close, because we are losing another 10,000 students, but we must maximize our retention and offer programs that will attract Detroit students.”
Agnes Hitchcock of the grass-roots group Call ‘em Out differed with Schloop’s acceptance of the proposed closures.
“It appears to me that the state has completed the destruction of Detroit’s public school system through its ongoing takeover, and that a largely insensitive school board contributed to this process, while malfeasance and corruption ran rampant,” she said. “It’s up to the residents of Detroit to re-build our own school system using the money the state and the private corporations have stolen from us.” . . . .
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/04/vulture-phil...
And another snippet:
Detroit—a model for nationwide assault on public education
By Joe Kishore
19 March 2010
The city of Detroit’s plan to shut down dozens of schools will have devastating consequences for communities and thousands of working class youth. It is part of moves, backed by the Obama administration, to dismantle public education in the city, expand charter schools and shut off services in the most impoverished areas.
The aim is to more directly subordinate education to the profit interests of the corporate elite that controls Detroit. On Tuesday, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb said that his new proposal “has a very strong market-driven component to it.”
On Wednesday, the Detroit Public Schools released a plan to close 45 facilities by June, bringing the number of schools closed in the city to more than 100 since 2006. This amounts to nearly half of the total number of public schools. Another 13 schools would be closed by 2012.
The plan was drawn up by Bobb, who was appointed by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm. Included in Bobb’s list of schools to be shut down are many well-known fixtures of communities, including Cooley, Osborn, Kettering, Northwestern and Southwestern High Schools. Dozens of elementary and middle schools in surrounding areas will also be closed.
The drastic steps being taken in Detroit are part of a nationwide process, in which states and local school districts are responding to budget deficits through the dismantling of the public education system. Last week, the Kansas City, Missouri school district voted to close 28 of 61 schools and cut 700 of 3,000 jobs.
The measures are being spearheaded by the Obama administration, which is aggressively pushing for the expansion of for-profit charter schools and the closure of the worst performing schools—i.e., those in the most impoverished areas. The federal government is also backing a campaign to victimize teachers for the crisis in education, including Obama’s public support for the mass firing of teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island last month. (See “Obama education plan to push competitive funding”)
...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/detr-m19.shtml
How exactly is the For Profit system of schools being structured? Are parents having to pay money to these schools in order to have their Children taught or are the For Profit Schools charging the Government directly thus paid via taxation?
It seems to it doomed to failure as tax revenues drop and wages remain stagnant or shrinking.
GwNorth, in Detroit the charters share in the public education funding, plus the parents of children attending the charters get $6,500 for each child attending a charter school. That $6,500 in tax credits are nothing more than a tax break for the wealthy. Look at it this way, back in 2008 the average cost of a family to send a child to a private/charter school was $22,000 to $24,000 a year on average. So a wealthy family realizes a tax break of $6,500 per child per year, while a working family who's combined take home pay between husband and wife was a total of $60,000 for the year and who are sending two children to a charter school get a total of $13,000 from the government to apply to their childrens tuition. That leaves the working family on the hook for at least $31,000 of their childrens tuition. On top of that the working family is still paying property taxes to the local school system. Some of which is being siphoned off by the charter schools.
The State of Michigan runs a Lottery who's revenues are suppose to go towards public education. (Except that the lottery revenues go into the states general fund, so nobody knows for sure how much money actually goes to the schools.) The city of Detroit has three casinos up and running within the city limits. The city gets a percentage of the revenues from the casinos which are suppose to go to the public schools in the city. So you start to see the corporate rat in the soup here. The charter schools get money from both the federal and state government, they get the $6,500 that the federal government gives to families, then they get the remainder of the tuition from the families. On top of all of that you have the revenues from the casinos, so you can see the gravey train that the charter schools get to swim in.
By the way, when Mr. Bob first took office a couple of years back, the Detroit Public School system was over $500,000 million in the red even with three casinos providing revenues to the schools. Needless to say the only way that could happen is if the people who where running the city were skimming money from the casino proceeds. As of yet, neither the feds or the state have demanded to have a look at the books. If it is anything like everything else run by the city, they wouldn't be able to make heads or tails out of it anyway.
If that isn't bad enough, you watch TV, listen to the radio or just drive around and see the billboards promoting the charter schools. Within everyone of these advertisments is always a pitch for contributions. What a f**king racket! I suppose that this is the way it is running across the nation. Just more of our money going down the corporate rat hole!
Teaching in America only gets to be more of a business the worse things get. If all people care about is getting grades more than applying what they retained and learned, then what's the use? Some people suggest homeschooling as the alternative but it's not for everyone.
When I look back at Ted Kennedy's support of NCLB and remember that even Kucinich voted yes on it in 2001, it makes me wonder if Kennedy would have done the same thing as Kucinich on health care. I don't know who to trust anymore the more I see a pattern among the politicians and the privileged in general. They seem to be able to afford great education and great health care while we Americans proudly poke fun at those who point out the politicians' hypocrisies.
I met a few younger relatives of mine from Europe and South Africa this weekend and their educational skills and knowledge were remarkable compared to the average American. I don't know what those countries teach those lads but boy are they smart and healthy even if they're not rich. I know, I'm probably just jealous and I've run into people who think I'm asking too much or asking for a utopia if all I do is ask for even a little health care reform that is real and a little freedom for students to self develop instead of being too "obedient" and dumbed down. Maybe most of us in America fear thinking like people in other countries just like they probably fear a change from capitalism to socialism. It's as if the American people want to imprison themselves and believe that they're "free".
I feel sorry for these young kids being put through education that was much worse than what I had more than 40 years ago. What will these kids do when they're young adults other than join the military if they can't find a job?
Race to the Top smells of jock.
bump, Nice comment.
Just wait for these Texas Scholars to try to pass a history examination.
Just another symptom of the massive collapse within the States going on at all levels. Superpower? Yeah right. I've gotten out of the country -- you should too, before things get worse... Read below for the grim truth.
http://americathegrimtruth.wordpress.com/
Thanks for posting. Nothing I have read on CD, either an article or a comment, comes even close to summarizing what I've come to fear half as close as your link. Every point they make (with exception of some GMO food predictions) is something I agree with. If I might add a possible reason why America became unliveable, it would be that our military grew to such a height that America, the country, simply couldn't be left to Americans, the people, any longer. Hence, the country had to be taken over, and it has been. Of course, I don't think America will become truly unliveable. But I do think, that American's have seen their true value fall by 20-30% in the last 3 years, and if they hang around they'll see it fall by another 20-30%. Its better to just get out, there are so many countries that understand what it takes to form a liveable society, out there. As your article mentions: every month that you live and work in America, is another month you are slipping away into a Third World kind of slavery. Why do it, when you can work in other countries and actually get rewarded with a decent lifestyle, for the same period of time? Well, of course, for some people the answer will be patriotism. Good for them, but, sad if they think the people who run this country are motivated by an ounce of patriotism in return. Better to run to a country where your love of country may eventually be returned, perhaps with interest...
I'll be forwarding your link to every one of my family and friends. Thanks for posting.
Wow. Thanks Heather.
I know I've pissed and moaned all over this site, about NCLB in the past. Which was more about my lack of stay to it,and stamina.
I have keenly observed the roller coaster Federal school intrusions, since the mid/later nineteen seventies. Progress??
I haven't decided. The picture/research is less than clear and definitive.
What I do believe, is that the teacher with support and students with inherent curiosity, lend to a canvas.
My next question is how or even, do you measure the picture?
If so, how. If not.......WTF.
No Child's Behind Left (unstung) is very Ole' school. What follows remains to be obscene.
Crash to the Bottom is no race in my textbook/playbook.
So............. if I knew, I'd still be formally educating in our struggling Pubic Schools. (jest).
Of course we measure progress, and always have. However, the ever mysterious shrinking curriculum and "canned program" are the watering down of a solid education.
I refused to do Californication of Second Language Learners, Administration's response;" You're narrowing your teaching options." Narrow yes, revamped five years later. Hell yes.
In Nevada, refused to teach that shitty, "Success For All/some" reading "program" in a tainted box. Transferred, under duress. Fuck'em. A monkey off the street could do it in three hours. I had/have a Master's degree.
Miss the students, but not the bullshit.
While, I'm ranting/raving, why not add; "I walked out on a co-teaching D.A.R.E.,program. Had to see if LEO had any teaching or classroom management skills. Hell NO!!! Probably should have been fired then, also.
There I feel better and my writing skills are coming, somewhat back..... well
For a little historical perspective, public schools in the 1950's were highly regimented, conformist and not conducive to original or creative thinking. If you were lucky, you were in a school district with at least a few highly motivated and interesting teachers; if not, the hours spent in class were deadening. Achievement tests and SATs were great for smart kids who didn't do well in this environment. At least they had an alternative to evaluation by bad teachers and fill-in-the-blank tests. My point is that schools needed reform before corporate ideology made them even worse. Eliminating standardized tests and returning to a public school system run by educators, not CEOs, is necessary but not enough. Shallow, fast-talking Arne Duncan sent his own children to a school founded by philosopher/educational reformer John Dewey. Now we need a modern equivalent (i.e., someone who thinks about the nature and purpose of education) to replace Arne Duncan.
when the construct of our society flies in the face of science and logic, schools have no chance...
what would they teach? that the construct of our society flies in the face of science and logic?
no, they teach made-up quotes and 'guessing'...
if one were to teach critical thinking, at what point would one tell the student to abandon such, so as not to clash with society?
live in a logical, admirable and teachable way, then teach that way...
i would says improve the tests
but I think most of our education is a complete waste of time
intended to 'socialize' the masses
instead of feeding a love of learning, it does the opposite and makes people hate learning, and they become great fodder to be manipulated by the sarah palins of the world
they become worshipers of "STUPID"
so they would 'improve' the tests in a way that would be equally useless