College-readiness test yet another challenge for Florida students

[SheilaT]

7. How old are your kids?

I would think problem solving strategies should be reasonably straightforward to teach. But I could be very wrong about that.

I can recall that my teachers in grades six through eight did teach such things. They'd tell us what kinds of things would be on a test and then tell us how to go about answering those kinds of questions.

We also had tests that had lots of different kinds of questions on them (I'm talking things like English, history, social studies)pretty much always including multiple choice, true/false, short answer, and short essay. If all the tests a kid ever take consists only of multiple choice, and if they're badly designed test questions at that, it would be very difficult to actually demonstrate real learning.

But I'm also old enough (63) that when I went to school, women had very few job/career options, and many of the best and brightest went into teaching. Today the same women have many other opportunities, and the best and the brightest often do something else besides teach.

This is not to disparage the genuine dedication of most teachers, but every time I get a look at the quality of teacher education I shudder.