The main purpose of this blog was about how America's children are not able to compete globally and how CEO's want to change the standards throughout all schools in order to make the children more prepared. The NAEP and the CEOs want to give a different assessment test to children instead of using the state assessment which they feel is inadequate. The article states that CEO's are in the best position to call for these changes because they are the future employers of the children. The article explained that many states are reluctant to make changes because they have lulled themselves as well as the children's parents into a false sense of security. The changes that the CEO's and the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) want to make are focused in two key areas; math and reading. These are apparently the only subjects that matter to the CEO's. While they say no one test can paint the whole picture, they believe that this assessment is more accurate. However, the NAEP test is very different from state tests, and students flip-flop on their scoring in many states. Massachusetts scored higher on NAEP, while Tennessee scored higher on state assessments.
This article relates to class because of our discussion on globalization, globalization "From Above" and globalization "From Below, as well as standardized testing's effectiveness. The CEO's, with a globalization "From Above", are trying to dictate how America's children learn. They want schools to focus even more on math and reading, subjects that are almost entirely the focus already. This relates to when we talked about jobs moving overseas as well because Americans cannot compete economically with the cheap labor supplied elsewhere. Companies simply do not want to pay their workers as much. The CEOs of this country are trying to change that by making the tests more rigorous and making students capable of competing with the likes of China and Finland. This also relates to the standardized testing discussion we had. The article discussed how one test cannot measure a student's ability completely, yet they are using one to determine America's progress.
I disagree with this strategy. While I believe it is a good thing that we are trying to better compete with other countries, I don't believe a standardized test is the answer. Even if it was a good measuring tool of progress, simply telling a student they are inadequate does not make them any more prepared to compete in the global economy. In fact, I believe it may be even more discouraging. Also, I don't believe that this globalization "From Above" strategy is going to be effective either. CEOs do not understand the students in every region of the U.S. How could they? The culture of the region plays a huge impact on their education and can only be understood by a member of that community.
I believe that the author comes from a teacher-centered, teach for the test approach. They advocate improving reading and math scores. This means one thing for poorer schools; teaching for the test. This is ineffective in doing anything except putting up a false front of success. If we want our children to have anything other than the ability to do well on ONE test, we must teach them through other strategies.
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