Centrisity

Leaving Children Behind

Crazy day today, but wanted to share this great article. It begins:

“No Child Left Behind”: That poll-tested slogan is the centerpiece of an artfully designed, meticulously implemented p.r. campaign designed to portray Texas as a hotbed of educational reform and achievement.

Certainly, the Texas accountability system has put some focus on teaching basic literacy skills to low-income children who may have been ignored in decades past. However, it also ranks schools based mainly on the rates at which students (both whites and minorities) pass a single standardized test.

But then it points out the reality that frustrates me:

There is another story, however—one that many Texans, particularly those with children in the public schools, know—that is little told outside the Lone Star State. It is a story of education policy based not on helping all children learn but on creating headlines about a “miracle” in Texas education. It is a story of students doing multiple-choice testing drills instead of reading Shakespeare.

Read the whole thing, and keep in mind, if all we do is teach kids to test, instead of teach kids to be lifelong learners, we are leaving them behind!

Flash