Reply #1: Duncan [View All]

I worked as a Chicago Public School teacher when Duncan ran the show here. He did a terrible job. Elementary were forced to spend much of the day teaching children on test-taking skills rather than science or history. Students even had to practice using pencils in filling in circles during rare class time. This is a nation-wide problem, created by the importance place on standardized testing. Some schools spend more money each year on practice test materials. Other schools use standardized test schools as the sole measure of rather or not a child advances to the next grade. The test has become the end, not the means to an end. If used properly. standardized tests can give a good indication as the level of learning possessed by a class of students as a whole, just basing the level of learning the students should be taught. Unfortunately, it is not used in this manner. Instead, it has become a yardstick with which to beat schools in poor neighborhoods, schools which receive little funding to teach poverty-stricken children who come from difficult backgrounds.