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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

NYC Educator: Wave of the Future

NYC Educator: Wave of the Future:

Wave of the Future

When I see stories like this one, I'm not remotely surprised. When you put a gun to the head of a principal and say, "Get higher grades or I'll kill you," that principal may just decide the hell with all that achievement nonsense--I'm just gonna pass everyone any damn way I can. Then, said principal will pressure staff to do the same.

In fact, this has been going on for years, in varying degrees, in just about every school in the city. Teachers are told it's their fault if kids fail, and run around trying to figure ways to pass every kid. So what if he's asleep every day. He passed that test three months ago. Sure he copied, but that showed initiative.

This mania for testing will not end well. It's not at all surprising that kids with apparently good grades are not college ready. But when it's entirely the fault of the school when kids fail, that's what you get. Who wants to have 500K per year Geoffrey Canada label you a