OK. Obama/Duncan/Gates School "Reform" Model: The results Are IN !!! Today's NYT: P. A1

[AdHocSolver]

77. Au contraire.

Nothing personal, but your posts display a considerable lack of knowledge about what is involved in learning, teaching, and what occurs in a school environment.

Having taught school (as well as earned college degrees), it is fair to say that I have observed numerous instances where students had received very good grades while having little understanding of the material and were limited in their ability to do anything useful with their "learning" (because of the fact that they had little understanding of the course material).

At the same time, there were students who did poorly on tests, but who had excellent understanding of the material.

There were many different reasons why this was the case. However, using a test, that itself may be of poor quality for measuring learning, and many tests that I have seen or taken, fell into the category of being poor at measuring anything, is a fraudulent activity.

Many text books are poorly written, many curriculums are poorly designed, many schools have poorly organized class schedules, many school administrations are headed by incompetents, many teachers work under extremely stressful environments, and in many schools, the students have to deal with a stressful situation in school or at home.

The politicking in education alone is often worse than can be experienced in the business world.

To claim that a standardized test by itself is sufficient to measure a student's learning achievements, and be used to rate a teacher's professional abilities, is beyond ludicrous.