Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Americans cheated of quality education

..Many empirical studies show standardized tests disproportionately have a negative impact on lowerclass and minority students because statistically, they do far worse as a whole than their white, upperclass counterparts.

Many teachers and schools have been known to teach for the test.

...Because of this, students are being cheated out of learning many important subjects such as music, art, history and so on.

This new legislation negatively affects girls because the subjects on the tests are considered “male” subjects because they are encouraged to study them. “Female” tracked subjects do not appear and therefore have lost much of their place in the classroom.

Although No Child Left Behind was enacted to help disadvantaged and minority students, it continues to perpetuate the cycle that it is trying to eliminate.

Girls, minority, low-income and special education students still fall behind, and without the appropriate funding, which is the No. 1 criticism of the legislation, these programs will only continue to fail and cheat our children out of the education they deserve.

There is good thinking in Oklahoma.

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