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Sunday, October 15, 2006

The "gap"


I apologize for the delay in posting this:

We read in class about the gap in math scores on state tests. In more affluent communities the scores are higher and in high-need communities the scores are lower. We also began to explore the controversial issue of “language”. As a class we acknowledged the social vs. “test” of academic language.

What are we supposed to do with this information? If there is discrimination in the system, how can we as 18 yr olds do something about this? What responsibility do state legislators have to close this gap? What seems to be the real issue here?

Carolina summed of the conversation at the end of class exquisitely by stating,


“The government either has to change the parents, change the tests, or retrain the teachers.”

Are there any other options?

For those of you that want more insight check out Jonathan Kozol's book Savage Inequalities (excerpted here)

3 comments:

Zoimanzanita said...

The whole educative system should change, beggining with teacher's formation and perfomance.
If the person in charge of teaching is more close to incompetence than to the figure of authority in knowledge, then, we're going nowhere.

Anonymous said...

Standardized tests are not always the best answer. They don’t really show how intelligent a child is. In class we were talking about how language plays a major role in a student’s performance, I feel that this is true. The scenario that Mr. Brown gave us in class was a perfect example. He said that if we were taught English all our life and then went to Germany to take a test that was in German we really wouldn’t do that good. That doesn’t necessarily mean that were dumb. We just didn’t no the language. If the scores in wealthy neighborhoods vary greatly with the scores in a poorer neighborhood, then there is a problem. Since the students in affluent neighborhoods are scoring higher on the standardized tests, then the students from the poorer neighborhoods aren’t being taught well enough. I think that the real issue is on poverty. I think something along the lines of what zoimansanita said is good.

Anonymous said...

if u do standardized test that really doesnt show how smart people are really are. in class when mr brown taught in class if a english is or life and german and you take a test u wouldnt be good at the test at all.standard tests isnt all that good for the low income places where people live because the students arent into the the high talking into the test and that the kids that was high into the test they will pass it