On another post Anonymous wrote:
Let’s cite additional evidence (a PSSA skill). Today’s PG under”Business” not “Education.” Let’s hope Eleanor Chute and ‘others’ here take note. Please read the entire article. This is only an excerpt to make the point:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11310/1187592-28-0.stm
“Unfortunately, a high school diploma in the Pittsburgh region doesn't necessarily mean that a student has the basic skills employers expect from a high school education. Pennsylvania State System of School Assessment test scores for 2011 show that more than 37 percent of our 11th-graders can't do math properly, and 26 percent can't read adequately. That means that southwestern Pennsylvania schools are sending more than 9,000 young people into the workforce every year without the minimum skills they need to get a job, much less go to college.
It's not just the high schools that are failing. The problem starts all the way back in elementary school. Nearly 30 percent of the fifth-graders in the region can't read at grade level, and more than 20 percent aren't proficient in math.
No business could survive if one-third of its products were defective, and our region can't be competitive in the global marketplace if one-third of our workforce lacks basic skills.
If you think the state tests may be too tough, think again. The National Assessment of Education Progress has found that Pennsylvania's standard for "proficiency" is only equivalent to what NAEP calls "basic" skills. Under the NAEP standard for proficiency, fewer than 50 percent of the elementary school students in our region would be considered proficient in either reading or math.
You might think that your own local school district is doing well because it proudly told the community it is meeting state standards for "adequate yearly progress," or "AYP." But a school can be classified as making "adequate yearly progress" even if one-third of its students are not proficient in math and one-fourth are not proficient in reading.”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11310/1187592-28-0.stm#ixzz1cxIEJvyH
Perhaps this is worthy of a new POST>
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6 comments:
"No business could survive if one-third of its products were defective" Yes this is true. A superintendent who wanted us yo have a more business-like model said th4ese words to me-- my answer then and now: If it was my business I would analyze the entire process-- starting with the raw materials.
But the nature of the business is to work with the raw materials given or work to make these particular materials arrive in better condition (for example, by better early education).
and yet the "powers that be" insist that their teachers teach a managed curriculum that obviously is not effective. There are a whole bunch of people running around writing and rewriting this curriculum every year. It still doesn't work but the teachers have to teach it.
Hmmm. The early education in PPS is widely acknowledged to be good. Roosevelt saw education as a business. What are the raw material? Can you define better condition?
I tend to look at these charges--which have gone on for two decades--as utter baloney. I tend to look at the people making these charges as agenda-riddled, self-serving opportunists.
It's my nature to question such charges. It's my nature to reflect on how society has changed.
It is reminiscent of those comments that would place American students as a non factor in comparison with other countries when it comes to standardized test scores. Never mind the fact that we hear nothing about how other countries do not test students with behavioral situations, let alone teach them. Never mind that we will hear long and loud about a school system like Singapore and their phenomenal scores and not look at the nation's "other", more average schools, which wallow in mediocrity.
Do some studying. Do some research. Question sources.
I've never believed this type of garbage, nor should anyone else.
I agree with anon 5:36-- notice that other countries do send their students to study here for university- and that system is built on a solid foundation- that public education- as in education for all is a priority in this country. It doesnt mean that all education has to be "public" but that as a country we value education for everyone.
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