BCT Editorial – 10/2/09

This page was last updated on October 5, 2009.

Incomplete grade; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 2, 2009.

I’ll limit my comments to the following paragraph. “Adding time to the school day makes sense because the current mania for testing has cut significantly into instruction time, as has teaching to the test. If nothing else, adding time to the school day would allow teachers to devote more time to teaching.”

For heaven knows what reason, the Times has an editorial history of opposing tests to evaluate what kids learn. Previous examples include “Testing,” “Test results,” and “Test happy.” One of the gripes is the use of tests pushes teachers to “teach to the test” as if that’s something bad. Isn’t the purpose of standardized tests to ensure students learn those things we as a society deem important to learn? Therefore, doesn’t it make sense to “teach to the test?” By “teaching to the test,” teachers are teaching students what we’ve determined is important.

Then, after claiming tests don’t tell us what kids learn, the Times publishes editorials asserting this or that school district is failing its students and taxpayers and uses test scores as proof! Using the Times own logic, how do we know those allegedly failing school districts aren’t really doing a top notch job?

For some considerations this editorial failed to note in its support of President Obama’s suggestion, please read the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial entitled “Longer student days? Short on reason.”