Why Can't We Accept That Our Society Needs Its Teachers to Teach for The Test?

[truedelphi]

16. A friend on another blog printed out the actual "logic problems" her once

School-loving daughter now has to deal with, and the reading material was pitiful.

Whereas the year before the need to "teach for the test" style of instruction came abut, the daughter's classmates were reading a grade level above theirs and discussing important concepts, like what used to happen when America was highly segregated. Now there is nothing but practice test booklets, with dismal "word problems" to solve.

"If John can help the assistant factory manager set up 14 pallets of goods in a half hour, how many pallets can be set up in eleven hours, if he takes a half hour for lunch." Hours and hours of stuff like that. (And many of the "logic problems" had built into them the not so subtle "suggestions" that no one needs to work only a forty hour week, or have any breaks.)

Her daughter no longer wants to go to school. I suggested the family look for a school for gifted kids, but it is not always possible to get into one of those, as there are far more parents wanting to get their kids into those schools than spots available.