As we approach the ACT (having been turned down for fairly simple accommodations that would allow AM to do what she’s capable of), I found this talk quite compelling.
Set aside about 17 minutes and watch this wonderful video. Joshua Katz, a high school teacher, connects all the dots.
This is a truly outstanding presentation. Watch it and help it go viral.
He shows how our present “toxic culture of education” is hurting kids, stigmatizing them as early as third grade by high-stakes standardized testing, while the vendors get rich.
He connects the dots: the testing corporations get rich while our children suffer. He names names: Pearson, McGraw-Hill, ALEC, and more.
The high-stakes tests demoralize many children, label them as worthless, demand “rigor,” while ignoring the children before us, their needs and their potential. As he says, we are judging a fish by whether he can climb a tree and labeling him a failure for his inability to do so. We ignore the development of non-cognitive skills, of character and integrity, as we emphasize test scores over all…
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that Bloody Cat 