Ignorance Is Bliss
Common Core doesn't like the "No Child Left Behind" law, claiming it leads to teaching toward standardized tests, rather than giving students a good liberal education.
I'm not going to get involved in that fight, but it's interesting that they point to their latest poll as proof for their side. It shows among today's students:
- Nearly a quarter cannot identify Adolf Hitler, with ten percent thinking Hitler was a munitions manufacturer.
- More than a quarter think Christopher Columbus sailed after 1750.
- Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the correct half-century.
- A third do not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion.
- Half have no idea what the Renaissance was.
- Nearly half think The Scarlet Letter was either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:54 AM
9 Comments:
I get frustrated with the critics, because they often miss the fact that the largest casualty of NCLB is the good students. The bad students actually benefit, because now the entire class has to procede at their pace.
It's considered horribly elitist to say so, but the fact is that 100% of scientific and literary progress, 98% of technological progress, and 90% of our political leaders were significantly above-average students. If our society loses these people, it cannot survive.
While not knowing basic components of history is shocking, it is one that is easily remedied (look it up after all) although remembering identifiable facts is one of the things tests are supposed to test well. I wonder more about skills (writing coherently) and understanding basic mathematical and scientific theories (forget evolution, do they get the weather?).
My son (5th grade) takes the Massachusetts standardized tests (which they say at least is one of the more highly regarded state tests) and they have very little of the multiple choice questions and a lot more essays- math involves not just getting the right answer but being able to explain in a written essay how the answer was arrived at (it must cost a lot to grade these things)- requiring understanding mathematical understanding, the ability to structure a paragraph as well as spelling and good handwriting (we struggle with the last one- maybe soon kids will type, but just seeing all the typos in my own posts doesn't give me much comfort).
I seem to recall that the shocking statistics about kids not knowing basic facts has been an old saw that has been used for many years (Remember SNL -A. Whitney Brown on the first Gulf War- "We call them "smart bombs" because unlike our children, they can find Iraq on a map")
Errata- The line from A. Whitney Brown was find "Kuwait" on a map.
Massachusetts has taken No Child Left Behind seriously and its improved their education. Needless to say, this is why all the Democrat leaders are fighting against it.
Did you read the study? I'm more troubled by what students do know than what they don't know.
Half don't know when the Civil War was fought, what the Federalist Papers were, who was Oedpius and who wrote the Canterbury Tales. But here's what more than 70% do know: What Brown versus Board Of Education decided, what the plot of "To Kill A Mockingbird" is, and who wrote "Leaves Of Grass."
Sounds to me like modern teachers are leaving out a classical education in favor of more modern, "relevant" touchy-feely stuff.
This kind of discussion always reminds me that as people age, they inevitably become fuddy-duddies. When I look at these factual questions, I always wonder when exactly I did learn these things? How many of them did I learn in college or even later? Of course, I know them all now, but in ninth grade, would I have? (And I was an "above average" student.) It's pretty easy as an educated adult to look down on a bunch of kids for what they don't know (yet).
Hey #5 - OK I'll give you "To Kill A Mockingbird" but the other items seem fairly equivalent to me (Brown v. Board of Ed leads back to Federalist Papers even if you disagree with it) Leaves of grass was just as impenetrable (maybe a bad word to use in describing old Walt) as the Canterbury Tales (though probably equally bawdy).
Brown versus Broad is trendy because it's about "relevant" civil rights, whereas the Federalist Papers are just boring old white slaveowners complaining about their taxes.
"Leaves Of Grass" is best known today as the book Clinton gave to women he wanted to sleep with.
Note to the Old School-It doesn't have to be irrelevant to be valuable
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