Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Will Standards Save Public Education by Deborah Meier, Joshua Cohen, Joel Rogers ISBN: 0-8070-0441-3 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 24 April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Standards Debate
Comment: This is one of the few books that relly looks at various sides of the debate about standards and standardization. Meier begins with a well resoned reivew of what the arguments for standardization are, and then why she believes that these actually get in the way of achieving high standards. Her article is then followed up with 5 other viewpoints on this debate.
Rating: 2
Summary: Invective Against Standardized Tests
Comment: The title of this book is deceptive; the book is not about whether standards will "save" public education, but rather a poorly-reasoned case against the use of standardized tests. Now it is perfectly true that standardized tests can be misused and misinterpreted, but that is hardly the only way they can be used. In my experience, the New York State Regents examinations have served all three of the following purposes:
1. Provide a statewide minimum standard of academic achievement which means that those students who receive a Regents diploma have a more meaningful credential than a mere school diploma. Prospective employers know what a Regents diploma signifies, whereas they seldom know how much a school diploma means.
2. Protects students against that small minority of teachers who would fail students they don't like. Granted, good teachers far outnumber bad teachers, but this is small consolation to victims of bad teachers. I know whereof I speak. My eighth grade English teacher would have failed me, but for the Regents exam. State law said anyone who passed the Regents passed the course.
3. Alerts state authorities to schools in which students consistently exceed or fall short of the expected level of academic achievement. The high-performing schools can be studied so that other schools can benefit from their methods, and low-performing schools can be helped to improve.
It seems to be this third "benefit" which has Meier up in arms. If the state authorities use the tests as an excuse to punish schools and teachers for below-average performance instead of aiding them to improve, then they are misusing the information from the tests, and this, beyond question, is bad. And it is true that politicians often prefer to withhold state aid from underperforming schools rather than give them the extra help they need to improve. After all, it "saves the taxpayer money" to give the schools less instead of more. It may be great political grandstanding, and it may get votes from the selfish and foolish, but it is a betrayal of the children the state is supposed to be serving. Meier is quite rightly offended by this.
But Meier ignores the baby in her zeal to throw out the bath water. It is not the tests that are at fault, but the politicians that misinterpret and misuse them.
Meier's essay is followed by seven critiques by seven other authors, all of which, in one way or another, miss the point. They all would do well to read John Stanford's book "Victory in Our Schools," which presents a program that, in addition to tests to evaluate student achievement and teacher performance, provides help to those teachers and students who are underperforming. Stanford correctly, I believe, assumes that nearly all teachers want to do right by their students, and he stood ready to provide those teachers with leadership, encouragement, and assistance in bettering their performance. Nearly all of them did!
2.
 |
Title: In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization by Deborah Meier ISBN: 0807031518 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools by Alfie Kohn ISBN: 0325003254 Publisher: Heinemann Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: The Power of Their Ideas : Lessons from America from a Small School in Harlem by Deborah Meier ISBN: 0807031135 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 16 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: The Schools Our Children Deserve : Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" by Alfie Kohn ISBN: 0618083456 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 05 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Standardized Minds: The High Price of America's Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It by Peter Sacks ISBN: 0738204331 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
