John Muir Middle School Analysis

Words: 751
Pages: 4
Open Document
I teach at one of the "100 worst" schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Superintendent Ruben Zacarias placed my school, John Muir Middle School, on probation last September primarily because its students scored low on the Stanford 9 test, along with not meeting other "key indicators" such as attendance and parent participation. The school's average scores are significantly below the 25th percentile. If student scores on this test do not improve by one to two percentile points, the district may take over John Muir. Eventually, the state could forcefully remove all staff.

Standardized tests like the Stanford 9 do not measure critical thinking, contain many cultural biases and are given in English. Because more than half of Muir's pupils are immigrants learning English, their low scores are not difficult to fathom. Furthermore, the Stanford 9 is a norm-referenced test. It is designed to produce results that form bell-shaped curves ranking a student's scores against others. Historically, such tests have not served as learning tools. Rather, they have been used to unfairly sort students onto either high- or low-academic tracks based on their test ranking, resulting in unequal …show more content…
The district does not provide these schools with the resources they need to help their students learn--and then blames them for poor test results. Politicians who shy away from real education and economic reform use the tests as a smoke screen, claiming that raising scores will attack poverty. But as long as we live in a society of racial segregation and uneven economic development, slightly higher scores on standardized tests are not going to make a major difference in the lives of poor students. Students scoring at the 25th percentile will be in the same boat as those below the 10th percentile as long as they face the same lack of opportunity in their
Show More

Related Documents: John Muir Middle School Analysis

Criminology Notes Essay

The Demonic Era recap -two main paths that can lead you to the devil? Temptation (choice), possession -5 trials -Patriarchal society Modern Day ‘Witch Hunts?’ -A witch hunt occurs any time a group of people persecutes another group unfairly, usually blaming that other group for larger problems, form of a socially constructed problem -e.g. expansion of AIDS blaming on homosexuals, blaming unemployment rates on immigration -early 1900s Chinese immigrants come to Canada to work on the railroads…

Words 8665 - Pages 35

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson Essay

please visit: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-silentspring/ Copyright Information ©2000-2007 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The following sections of this BookRags Premium Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare…

Words 30115 - Pages 121