Comments on: Obama’s Race To The Top http://www.educatednation.com/2009/07/28/obamas-race-to-the-top/ Education Blog. News, humor, advice, and opinion on education and career, graduate school, college degrees, and university life. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:04:17 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Alexa http://www.educatednation.com/2009/07/28/obamas-race-to-the-top/comment-page-1/#comment-125326 Alexa Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:37:37 +0000 http://www.educatednation.com/2009/07/28/obamas-race-to-the-top/#comment-125326 Mrs.M-- You're totally wrecking the pathetic little bubble of optimism I've so carefully placed around myself! Damn it, woman, now I have to face up to the fact that the public education system is FUBAR, and not even the seemingly-good guys know how to come up with a decent way to fix it. Is it the nature of the politician animal that makes them all, no matter how non-evil they appear at the outset, incapable of being true and fair and good and right? How hard is it to just decide to make schools work well? I hate being a grown-up and having to realize crappy life-truths like: The lesser of two evils is still a pain in the ass. Thank you for the reality check, though. I do appreciate an insider's view of the testing situation. It sounds as dire as I was hoping it wasn't. Take care, Alexa Mrs.M–

You’re totally wrecking the pathetic little bubble of optimism I’ve so carefully placed around myself! Damn it, woman, now I have to face up to the fact that the public education system is FUBAR, and not even the seemingly-good guys know how to come up with a decent way to fix it. Is it the nature of the politician animal that makes them all, no matter how non-evil they appear at the outset, incapable of being true and fair and good and right? How hard is it to just decide to make schools work well? I hate being a grown-up and having to realize crappy life-truths like: The lesser of two evils is still a pain in the ass.

Thank you for the reality check, though. I do appreciate an insider’s view of the testing situation. It sounds as dire as I was hoping it wasn’t. Take care,

Alexa

]]> By: Mrs M http://www.educatednation.com/2009/07/28/obamas-race-to-the-top/comment-page-1/#comment-125325 Mrs M Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:04:12 +0000 http://www.educatednation.com/2009/07/28/obamas-race-to-the-top/#comment-125325 The testing is a joke. I've seen it from a couple different angles. I do believe in competition and I hope this does make things better, but as for the testing itself here's what happens: 1. close to testing time, the teachers suddenly start cramming the material they haven't yet covered (that supposedly the students should already know) so that they can get higher scores on the tests. Everything else gets thrown aside. 2. parents and students don't really realize that the testing has very little to do with their child and more about how the school/district looks. 3. I've actually scored the (subjective) parts of the test (written answers) and it is pretty much an assembly-line situation where you should be getting through so many tests during a certain amount of time. Low scores are not preferred and if at all possible you give points for the slightest effort. Perfect scores are incredibly rare as well. Some people scoring the tests are highly qualified and others I had to wonder about....but I suppose that is with any job. One of the things I really dislike about testing time is that there is so much pressure on the kids who don't realize how little it actually means to their own success and how much suddenly switching gears and throwing new information at them takes away from the quality of education they deserve. The testing is a joke. I’ve seen it from a couple different angles. I do believe in competition and I hope this does make things better, but as for the testing itself here’s what happens: 1. close to testing time, the teachers suddenly start cramming the material they haven’t yet covered (that supposedly the students should already know) so that they can get higher scores on the tests. Everything else gets thrown aside. 2. parents and students don’t really realize that the testing has very little to do with their child and more about how the school/district looks. 3. I’ve actually scored the (subjective) parts of the test (written answers) and it is pretty much an assembly-line situation where you should be getting through so many tests during a certain amount of time. Low scores are not preferred and if at all possible you give points for the slightest effort. Perfect scores are incredibly rare as well. Some people scoring the tests are highly qualified and others I had to wonder about….but I suppose that is with any job. One of the things I really dislike about testing time is that there is so much pressure on the kids who don’t realize how little it actually means to their own success and how much suddenly switching gears and throwing new information at them takes away from the quality of education they deserve.

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