I have to disagree with most of your post.
For every horrible school there are great ones. I’ve been lucky enough to only experience great ones. But I’ve sure had family in horrible ones.
The state tests are useless anyway - they’re not “graded” like you may think they are. Scores are “scaled” and whatever political result is desired is achieved. For instance, 51% correct answers on a recent Georgia state test was “scaled” to 82. How can someone who shows mastery of 51% of material get an 82? ===> politics.
“Education is dropping” as you say because fewer parents [and kids] value education. It’s that simple.
jmho
For every “Great” school there are dozens that are total terrible ones. I’m familiar with actual educators here in the local area as my Sis ter-in-Law is a Doctor in Education and works for a huge school district. I’ve seen the cirriculum, it sucks. Every book I see for classes is crap.
State tests are crap too. I agree with that. But what did I say that you don’t agree with? You have been lucky, that is all I said about schools. It is by luck that people can get there. If you aren’t luck then what?
As for politics, that is all schools are about now. Political results.
The answer is not politics all the time. It is quite easy to create a test which is very difficult and where the average of all the people taking it is well under 50%. In fact, the best test is probably one where the average of all test takers is 50%, so that it is possible to demonstrate that one is either well ahead of average, or well behind it.
As an example, I recall a chemistry test I took at MIT in my freshman year. I had challenged freshman chemistry and was allowed to take second year chemistry. I felt I did poorly on the test, and when grades came back, I had a 35%. Fortunately, that was the best grade in the entire class, and the class average was about 20%. Clearly the test was very difficult, but that is no reason to assume that all 500 students in the class has suddenly transformed into dolts.
All advanced testing should be graded "on a curve". The traditional mindset that A=90-100, B= 80-90, and so on is an artifact, but correcting to these values is valid if it allows parents to evaluate test results according to their own common misconceptions.
It depends upon what the score represents.
A typical goal of standardized testing is to rank the test-takers on a percentile scale. This permits comparisons of different groups of people; for example, students at two different schools.
If we were to administer an algebra test to 100,000 eighth-graders, and the goal was to determine how well the concepts had been learned, we would not want to make the test so easy that a significant percentage make a perfect score. It might be reasonable to design the test so that only twenty-percent would correctly answer more than half the questions.
If a sample population showed eighty-percent scoring only 40% correct answers, then the test should be made easier. If eighty-percent scored 60%, then the test should be made more difficult. By making such adjustments, the test scores would form a distribution without too large a percentage of students either getting all questions right or all questions wrong.
Assuming that the sample population was sufficiently representative of the target population, then the test could be administered to the 100,000 students with the expectation that eighty-percent of the total will score below 50%.
A school whose students had an average score of 50% on this test could be given a "score" of "80", representing the fact that the average student scored at the 80th percentile; that is, higher than eighty percent of all students taking that test.
The problem with such a test is that it cannot be used to determine whether the average student, or even the most advanced student, has "learned algebra". Only a test designed to demonstrate some minimum level of proficiency can do that. My point is that "proficiency" testing is one thing and "qualification" testing is quite another thing.
The article tells us that the New York school system is quite confused about its testing. It doesn't tell us anything about whether the students are learning what they need to be taught. But my guess is that they are not now nor have they ever been taught what they need to know.
Parents haven’t devalued education. They’ve been groomed to a level of proficiency necessary to keep the system going.
There might be great schools out there, but a market would prove it. Either government school teachers are the best or they aren’t.
The fact that Kumon math and other tutoring services exist is proof that government schools aren’t doing the trick.
The supposition that someone cannot be taught and the class warfare played out with honors, AP, and magnet schools is a lie.
Anyone can be trained. The market does it all the time. In a few short years McDonald’s can take near morons, rejected by government schools and get them to run a store.
To not allow the market to try and fix a broken system is to relegate an entire class of people to permanent serfdom.
Not acceptable and absolutely unAmerican.