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Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 26, 2007 / 11 Menachem-Av, 5767

An RX for Failure — Pay More to Teach Less

By Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | With Democrats in control of Congress now, expect them to try to water down No Child Left Behind, as Washington works on a bill to reauthorize the landmark Bush education reform enacted in 2002. That is, expect Democrats to try to squeeze as much money as possible from federal taxpayers — they rarely complain about spending — while watering down accountability requirements so that schools don't have to do a better job teaching children. And they'll do it by undermining the testing system so that illiterate students can be labeled as success stories.


Or, as Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said during a phone interview Friday, "All the people who have railed against too much testing now are for multiple measures" — which entail more tests, but tests that can hide what children are not learning. "The more complicated" the tests they propose, "frankly, the more obfuscation" results, Spellings noted.


As Education Week reported in May, Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a new member and former teacher, wants to add portfolio assessments of student work — that can include essays, drawings and reports — to measure whether students are reading and doing math at grade level. National Education Association President Reg Weaver has proposed the same.


Which shows, as Spellings pointed out, that they can support more testing — if it is amorphous testing that can pave over gaps in a child's knowledge. The argument for portfolios, Spellings noted, is, "We're over-testing (students), so let's have more tests." You've heard the arguments against standardized tests. They are "one size fits all." They do not measure the scope of a child's understanding. They are boring. They represent drill and kill. They are unfair to non-English speakers.


But, as Spellings noted, "The reason we have assessments is to find out how many poor and minority children read at grade level." If schools had not made a practice of graduating students who do not read or compute at grade level, these tests would not be necessary. But in that so many students have fallen behind — while their grades have not — standardized tests have become an essential tool in the public's quest to find out which schools are failing students, then fixing those schools. Standardized tests also can help determine which teaching methodologies and textbooks work best with different student groups.


Where critics see "one size fits all," others see tests that can find gaps in student knowledge — so that teachers can fix them. In June, a report by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy found that significant improvement among elementary school math students in 37 of 41 states, as well as improvement in middle school reading in 20 out of 39 states, and in high school reading in 16 out of 37 states, according to The Washington Post. After years of dumbed-down education, these modest gains are cause for celebration.


Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., according to Education Week, once called No Child Left Behind an attempt by right-wing Republicans to "undermine our confidence in our public schools." In fact, the bill, while imperfect, was designed to increase confidence in public schools, not by pretending failing schools work well, but by making failing schools better.

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© 2007, Creators Syndicate

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