Business-Managed Democracy

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Surveys showed that whilst the public was in favour of the idea of rigorous academic standards and testing to help schools and parents evaluate student performance and parents to evaluate schools, they had many reservations about testing (see table below) and preferred grading and evaluation by teachers to decide if children should go ahead a grade or graduate.

Survey of Attitudes to Testing

	Parents	Public
Tests are a bad idea because:	Agree	Agree
Some students perform poorly even though they know the material	86%	80%
They can’t measure many important skills	71%	71%
Teachers begin teaching to the test and drop other important ideas and curriculum	64%	65%
Teachers and students spend too much time preparing for tests	53%	44%
They cause educators to cheat to raise scores	53%	40%
They put too much pressure on elementary school children	50%	45%
They are demoralizing to children and encourage dropping out	44%	37%

 

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See also: High Stakes Testing | Toll on Teachers |
Toll on Children | Leaving Children Behind

References

 

© 2009 Sharon Beder
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/education/businesses/surveys.html