Friday, March 25, 2016

The End Of Education

Joanne has a post that says much more than she probably planned for it to:
Tracking in eighth grade — usually in math — correlates with higher scores on AP tests at the end of high school, concludes the 2016 Brown Center Report on American Education.
The quote at the end is the most telling:
San Francisco Unified middle schools no longer teach algebra, as part of the shift to Common Core standards, reported Ana Tintocalis for KQED last year.

For years, all eighth graders took algebra and many failed, said Lizzy Hull Barnes.  Now no one will take algebra till ninth grade.

This “is a social justice issue for SFUSD,” writes Tintocalis. “District officials say the controversial practice of tracking students — or separating them based on talent and ability — is simply wrong.”
No, what's "simply wrong" is what I identified in my comment on Joanne's post:
That, in a nutshell, is why we in education have lost all credibility. It’s clear that SFUSD doesn’t believe all children should reach their potential, and they’re willing to hold some kids back in order to make that belief a reality.

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