Reading, Arithmetic, and ... Well ... Nothing
Justin Bathon on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 10:41AM There is quite a buzz in the edublogisphere over a Sunday NY
Times front page article on NCLB reading and math demands. The story
says that instruction in math and science are doubling or even tripling, while
instruction in all other subjects is being cut. The data is based on a study from the Center on Education Policy, Jack Jennings
policy center in
While the data is compelling, it represents another severe misstep by the
writers of NCLB when it comes to policy implementation. What good is reading
and math without a context within which to use them? This reminds me of a story
that everyone has about the "geek" in high school who knew all there
was to know about equations and diagramming sentences (does that show my age?)
but didn't have any friends. Why was that? Could it be that pure knowledge
without context is a pretty useless thing? So it seems with NCLB's policy on
reading and math. I am sure the point of the policy was to increase overall
knowledge in all subjects, but when you test in only two, well it doesn't take
a lot of foresight to know what is going to happen.
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