A Sunday LA Times page one story had this headline: "China gives US schools budget help" (Oct 27). The subheadline: "Tuition-paying Chinese students are providing much needed money - and cultural exchange - to high schools here."
Our schools would not have these budget problems if we didn't waste so much money on standardized testing. And the budget crisis will get worse because testing will soon be online, which means massive and ever-increasing spending on technology.
Also, the article explains that a major motivation to doing high school in the US is to avoid the brutal gaokao the university entrance exam, considered by some to be the toughest exam in the world (http://www.businessinsider.com/maotanchang-gaokao-factory-town-2013-10).
But American schools schools are catching up. How long will it be until American students from wealthy families go abroad for school to avoid the common core tests?
Our schools would not have these budget problems if we didn't waste so much money on standardized testing. And the budget crisis will get worse because testing will soon be online, which means massive and ever-increasing spending on technology.
Also, the article explains that a major motivation to doing high school in the US is to avoid the brutal gaokao the university entrance exam, considered by some to be the toughest exam in the world (http://www.businessinsider.com/maotanchang-gaokao-factory-town-2013-10).
But American schools schools are catching up. How long will it be until American students from wealthy families go abroad for school to avoid the common core tests?
The $6000 I was promised to do pilot project with Chromebooks in my English classes (after I had spent over a year of weekends, summer, and vacations working on what I would do with them, including learning about Google apps, online programs for much of what we do with vocab, reading, and writing). Timesaving, almost paperless, I had it all ready to go. Then I got an email saying that the money was spent on more desktop computers so that our school district would have enough computers to do the district and state standardized tests and student tests that will be used to evaluate teachers.
ReplyDeleteWhen I explained this to my students they were dumbfounded at the stupidity of computers for testing but not for working and learning!