|
i think the problem with high schools at this point is that they teach standardized tests. teachers have their hands tied by stupid, largely conservative-inspired, requirements, one effect of which is to force teachers to present ideological statements as matters of fact because the tests require they be handled in a particular way.
so no, it's not a problem with teachers. it's a problem with conservative educational policy being directed at preventing too much of this critical thinking stuff from getting out into the world. i don't really understand what it is about thinking for oneself that scares the right. ok, well i do, but it's a threadjack.
i don't buy the idea that tracking is going to resolve anything---unless by it you are advocating something on the order of the english system. but that makes no sense unless university education is free---or tuitions are kept flat---which i'm cool with, btw---because the function of the a-levels is to allocate university places.
but that's an entirely different type of standardized testing than the idiocy of no child left behind. those tests refer back to the high schools themselves. a-levels refer to university placement. geared differently.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|