The Boston Globe has an editorial today about the MCAS, the standardized test required to get a high school degree. It gives two examples. First,

West Roxbury teachers are becoming experts in the MCAS. They analyze the tests’ questions and students’ answers, looking for trends in what the tests ask and what errors students make.

Then they teach to those trends. Second, the editorial reports that the same school is fobbing students off onto computers, using a $1,667 piece of software called “Plato.”

To my amazement, the editorial isn’t using these two educational programs as examples of what’s wrong but of what’s right. This is giving students a “21st education at schools with 21st century resources.”

Gosh, torquing your entire math curriculum in order to have kids pass a test and plopping kids in front of instructional software is so 21st century. Heavens forfend that we should revert to teaching kids so that they learn to love learning, reducing class sizes so teachers can teach what each kid needs to learn.

That this comes from a generally liberal editorial board is all the more depressing.

Categories: Uncategorized dw