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Roanoke Times, 8-1-11, Pg 10: Editorial: Not every place is Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average.
“Yet, NCLB has not failed in is mission. Quite the contrary. It forced habitually failing schools to confront the miserable job they were doing and held them accountable.”
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Educators are now crying out that their student performance has “leveled-off” and they cannot continue to improve academic performance thereby evoking draconian penalties.
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The concepts behind the Virginia SOL’s and NCLB are that:
1. All children can learn to an acceptable level
2. Starting from first grade, students must be on an improved “learning curve”.
3. Assessments must be based on objective testing and not subjective feelings.
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The first concept, that all children can learn, is the basis of every course in the Teacher’s College curriculum. However, as we all observed when we were students, there is a big range in “intellectual horsepower” between students. Also the concept of “intellectual curiosity” and work-ethic are key components that can off-set shortfalls in a student’s intellectual capability. And then there is the “teaching-learning environment” that has been decimated by the “empowered, self-centered, and disruptive” new-age students.
It is painful for professional educators to be forced to admit that nature’s statistical “normal curve” applies to student learning and that there are students who cannot keep up with the standard curriculum at an acceptable rate.
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The second concept, that each starting class must be on an improved “12 year learning curve”, is the key to ever increasing performance. This requires that each grade implements their contribution to the overall accumulative learning process. As students move-up through the grade levels their performance should be improved over the class before them. That educators have concluded that the improvement process is not working is a difficult position for them to take and requires examination of what is not working.
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The cries of “too much testing” and “we only have time to teach to the test” is probably true because only when the class that started on the new “12 year learning curve” graduates (that takes 12 years) can the follow-on classes perform at the required levels with additional class time available for enrichment content. “Dumbing down” the 12 year process and curtailing the test-measurement systems are clearly not the answer to our educational challenges.
Educators – put away the white flags of surrender and get out the red-white-blue flags of we’re Americans and we can compete with any educational systems in the world so that our people can compete in a one-world workplace.
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Peruse the prior links for views on why our educational system is not OK:
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2011/03/yet-another-misdirected-roanoke-times.html
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2011/02/yet-more-roanoke-times-bias-against.html
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2010/12/too-dumb-to-serve.html
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2008/10/classroom-colors.html
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2008/06/teachers-short-on-math.html
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