Dumbing down the curriculum only dumbs down the students.
If you perpetuate ignorance and low standards you're going to get ignorant students with low standards. Seems like an easy concept to understand, so why do we still have masses of kids failing tests?
I don't know. Nobody else seems to, either. If there is a magic word to fix the education system, no one seems to know them or their not talking.
My high school English teacher told me that she didn't teach English in her classroom; she taught students how to fill out bubbles on standardized tests.
We have measurements to determine if students pass on to the next level of their education, we call them grades.
More standardized testing doesn't seem to be the answer, but we keep plodding down that same road with our no. 2 pencils.
It seems that the schools have tried to shift the power and responsibility to the parents and have found the parents lacking. Why should you need parental approval to place the 18 year old girl into remedial education classes? Why has the power in this situation shifted from the school, who knows the limitations of the student, to the parent, who obviously refuses to acknowledge it? When did education stop being a privilege and become a God given right? I don't like to waste my tax dollars supporting lazy ass students who get by because schools are too tired to deal with them. I pay my taxes to support schools that teach, not free day care for lazy ass parents with problem children. It seems that parents want schools to educate their children and show them way to a better life, but they "sure as hell ain't paying no more taxes for it." The parents want schools to accept the responsibility of teaching their children right from wrong, but be damned if they let the school have any authoritative power to discipline them.
Standardized curriculum doesn't seem to be the answer either. It seems that this would spawn an even bigger epidemic of memorization and regurgitation. Not only that, but even with a standardized curriculum you would still have the problem of teachers emphasizing particular pieces of it as they see fit.
One last note. These tests aren't hard. I've taken more than my fair share of bubble tests and they prove nothing. On my latest standardized testing spree, off all the students nationally who took the same test, I scored better than 85% of them in mathematics. I would consider that an accomplishment except my grades in mathematics (D's across the boards) do not reflect that. Of the 45 questions, I correctly answered 37. This only tells me that I take bubble tests exceptionally well or the test was exceptionally easy. I remember taking this test quite well and it's certainly the former and not the latter.
(edited: because I'm long winded
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