Dumbing down


I couldn't agree more with the person (rumoured to be a teacher) at 1% More Conscious:

The one real-news filmstrip that never left the developing room let alone move to editing revealed yet another stunning reality in America: our high school students’ achievement in reading has gone down, way down, from an 80% reaching “basic” proficiency in 1992 to a staggering 73% reaching “basic” proficiency in 2005. But this is not the only fact that the report, produced by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, projected onto the much manipulated mainstream media news radar screen: more so than ever, high school students are taking the most challenging courses available and, get a load of this, achieving the highest marks in these courses.

Let’s do the math, another academic area in which our students have fallen behind: MORE STUDENTS TAKING “DIFFICULT COURSES” + INFLATED GRADES = DUMBED-DOWN CURRICULUM. In the age of No Child Left Behind and Education through Testing, no wonder the powers that be didn’t want to advertise this fucking horror show of real-news.

My kids went to Fitch High, where you get an Academic Letter (like a letter for sports) if you get an A minus average for a certain number of semesters. In principle, it's a great idea. I watched the awards ceremony in amazement, however, as about one third (by my count) of the kids in the school picked up such a letter. There were four classes in Advanced Placement American History when my younger boy was a senior. It was truly amazing. All those A-Minus averages. All those advanced placement classes. Just like Lake Woebegon, everyone above average.

I graduated with a class of about 750 from Hartford Public High School (biggest class ever, class of 68). I tested well, but being a lazy guy, I was only 18th in class rank. I did not have an A minus average. Bear in mind I was in the top 3% (not 33%) of my class. Given how hard I worked, I didn't deserve an A-minus average. If I were in high school today, I'd have to work at avoiding that average and I'd still learn less than I actually did at good old HPHS. And believe me, in 1968 HPHS was not the shell of a school it is today. It was a quality school with quality teachers, except for the English Department, which was dominated by ..., but I wander.

The present state of affairs is not the fault of the kids by any means, nor do all the teachers buy in to the present system, but the dumbing down process is real and it has to be stopped somehow.
Posted: Thursday - March 01, 2007 at 11:33 PM          

©