The Problem with Education

Educational Historian Diane Ravitch recently blogged her opinion on the flaws with the American Education System in response to one of her readers, Gordon Wilder.  Ravitch boldly claims that the fatality of the education system occurred when people lost sight of the real goal of education, teaching values, and in contrast tunneled in on test scores.

The world of standardized testing and quantitative data is foreign to me.  As a private school teacher, my daily routine is not driven by policy-makers far removed from the classroom.  I write my curriculum.  I create the students’ activities.  I determine the assessments and standards.  Is this the right way to run a classroom?  I’m not entirely sure.  There are days that I long for more guidance and a uniform benchmark to see how effective I am in comparison to other teachers.  But then I talk to colleagues who came from public school and feel relieved that my classroom scores aren’t plastered around the faculty room for all to see. 

Ravitch makes a comment that, “pretty soon they will be having classes on how to take tests” and my response to Ravitch is that they all ready do.  Companies like the Princeton Review and Kaplan function in preparing people for standardized tests.  Students enroll in courses that not only teach them content material, but also tips and strategies such as when to skip questions and how to eliminate choices on these standardized tests.  Sounds like a great way to prep for the big test… if you can afford it.

Cost of Kaplan SAT Prep from www.kaptest.com

What about the students who cannot afford to take a Kaplan course?  Aren’t they destined to do worse than the child who takes the course teaching them “how to test”?  In my opinion, this is one of the greatest problems with standardized testing.  There is no such thing as an “even playing field”.  There is always one group that has an advantage or a one-up over the next.  Sadly, our education system has decided to make these scores the mark of success.  One number is determining the worth of a student.