[Stingy Jack]

Gothic-Chick: Accountability in failing schools is a horrible idea. Especially when that accountability is put on the faculty and administration. A large percentage of our failing schools are failing because they serve low-income, poverty areas. The kids from these households have a completely different set of values than you or I, and, unfortunately, education figures in very low on this list of values. Most of them figure that they aren't going to get a decent job anyway (which is true), so why bother busting your ass to get a good education? And, unfortunately, you can't get it into these kids that education is more than just preparing for a good job, and that getting a good job is the smallest value of a good education. You can't tell them that. Believe me, I have tried.

Accountability should be heaviest on the student and on the parent of the student. Most parent-teacher nights, I will sit there for three hours, failing kids all over the place in my gradebook, and maybe three parents will come through my door, all of them parents of passing children. Sad, but true.

And you're right, high-stakes testing is horrible as well. For one, standardized tests do little to show all that the child has learned. They test to see if the child can remember facts. That is all. But you also raised a good point when you said that you have known very smart people choke on tests. This is true! The higher the stakes, the more stress is involved, the worse the student is going to do. Plain and simple. We can keep lowering the bar on these tests, but doing that just defeats the whole purpose of administering the test to begin with!

And I agree that the state of education in this country was pretty bad before Bush intervened, but I'm afraid his "solution" made it worse. The top educators and education professionals in the nation tried to inform him on the pointlessness of his act, but he just couldn't see it.

When he was elected, one of my English Ed. professors at the University came to class wearing all black, as if in mourning. He knew Bush would screw it up, and he did.