The Master Mind of David Hirsch
Last night, I attended the lecture on high stakes testing and the decline of teaching. The only word that can define this lecture was surprising. The information and statistics thats Mr. Hirsch presented were overwhelming. For example, he told us that New York State has the fifth lowest graduation rate in the country. The dropout rate has also increased by 17 percent between 1998-2000. I don’t know about anyone else, but I always thought that New York was one of the better states concerning education in the country. However, based on this information, I am wrong.
Another thing that Mr. Hirsch spoke about was Regents exam). When he said this, everyone let out a groan because we have all been through them. An interestign fact was that the exams that students MUST take (like the math tests) are made easier in order to increase the passing rate. This angered me because students are being cheated of an education. I am not asking for regents to be hard, but I think it should be reasonable. Mr. Hirsch also brought up an English regents, which I believe we can all relate to. He said that the Regents board took out certain things in the text that were used in the test concerning religion, sex, race, and drugs. This made me confused. Haven’t we been striving to relate more of the students’ lives in the English curriculum? By doing this, students are being cheated.
Overall, this was a great presentation. I am looking forward to buying his new book when it comes out.
Alexis
Have a great holiday!
The Mathematics Regents Exam harder??? Are you crazy? Jusssst kidding. Clearly, I was never a math student.
I think that’s great that you attended that. Did he by chance have anything to say in regards to someday there not even being regents exams? Or is that too far-fetched and hopeful of an idea?
Oh New York state standards. What will we do with you?
Comment by willis13 — March 21, 2008 @ 6:26 pm
He did not refer to the Regents specifically in this manner, but he said that he thought there should be state tests, but that they should not be high-stakes. This means thats it would not make a child fail the class if he fails the test. Hirsch said that in one state the state tests only make up one tenth of a student’s final grade. It would be great if this was implemented in New York.
Alexis
Comment by alexisk — March 21, 2008 @ 6:48 pm