Submitted by Teresitia Walters, Dec 18, 2007 22:38

Since the sixties, the US education system has been going down stream. When we look at the TIMSS current report it shows that when compared with other countries, the US is scoring very very low on their standardized test, right now the results are so alarming that the US to date will not continue in the next round. Many people are saying teachers are failing our children (they are already working with little resources) and some may argue that parents need to be more concerned with their child's academic progress (true, but families who have to travel far to work and perhaps hold more than 2 jobs may not have such opportunity to participate in their academic success), note am not excusing parents who can truly do better, but we need to know that at the end of the day it comes down to an economic problem. Take a look at the most current Fiscal budget report and the allocation towards educations .

We already know that based on standardized results we are behind in specially Math and Science, but are we truly behind or we need to eliminate standardize testing.

You might be wondering well how would the education system measure productivity, do policy makers (who are they and why don't you know?) really want to know the answer –here goes keep up with current trends to better reach our current population, allow parents to send their children to any school they desire, and what this will do is force school leaders to become more competitive. You might say this is not a business, not healthcare or higher education, so who is our policy makers?

Anyway, I know the community has concerns about some of the D and F performing schools, but the question is did the school leader try the hortatory policy approach? If they did and it did not work, ok, but to present mandates based on scores is not good enough, let's hope this is not the case

Policy makers including school leaders need to realize that one side does not fit all. They need to better understand polices and how to effectively match policy to problem and in so doing change the environment of the school.

Bromption, Jamaica WI

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