The new incentive, called the Race to the Top Fund, aims «to reverse the pervasive dumbing -
down of academic standards and assessments by states,» the secretary said, and to punish states «that explicitly prohibit linking data on achievement or student growth to principal and teacher evaluations.»
Not exact matches
The chancellor, an ardent supporter
of higher
academic standards, recently announced she will step
down in April when her current term expires.
Parents and teachers complained — with some legitimacy — that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era set loose an avalanche
of weak fill - in - the - bubble tests to assess student mastery
of watered -
down state
academic standards.
Instead, we try to pretend that most, if not all, should be on an almost exclusively
academic track, thereby requiring that
standards of achievement be lowered and curricula watered
down to accommodate the average to below - average ability student.
Their job is to whittle
down several sets
of student expectations into the best possible
academic standards — all before next week.
For them, the new
standards represent a significant step
down from the
academic rigor that was the foundation
of their success.
But what a lot
of them come
down to is a balance between raising
academic standards and broadening access.
Acceptance and accommodation
of poor students» «cultural style» interferes with the goal
of bringing low - income students» deportment up to the level
of their more affluent classmates, and «defining deviancy
down» through the relaxation
of standards and sanctions undermines the preservation
of an orderly and respectful classroom environment that, recent research suggests, is essential to all students»
academic progress.
With school funding constantly hanging precariously on the edge
of being whittled
down to nothing, schools have had to become very creative about how they still maintain a minimum
standard of academic excellence while also preparing students to be 21st century learners.