As I was cleaning out my school mailbox today, I stumbled across the following mailer from Scholastic -- the ever-popular book and magazine company that serves a bajillion schools and students a year:
(click to enlarge)
Does that bother anyone besides me?
I guess whenever I see the word "IMPORTANT" followed by a bulleted list that STARTS with "Raise Test Scores" and ENDS with "Improve Understanding of Science Concepts," I see ANOTHER reminder of our nation's skewed #edpolicy priorities.
What's frightening is that I'm SURE that Scholastic has done enough research to KNOW that putting "Raise Test Scores" first in their bulleted list is going to result in more opened envelopes that putting "Improve Understanding of Science Concepts" first.
Companies of all kinds respond to their markets, y'all -- and Scholastic's figured out that educators care first-and-foremost about raising test scores.
That should leave us feeling more than a little convicted.
#truth
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Related Radical Reads:
What DO We Want Students to Know and be able to Do?
Assessing Learning the Danish Way
My daughter graduated high school with a 4.8 GPA, entered UCLA in a pre-med major, and three weeks later realized she hated science. She'd aced every test because she was good at memorizing. She hadn't learned anything. Good ending tho, she switched to psych and global studies and just took her LSAT and she wants to change the world. Thanks for fighting the good fight.
Posted by: Bev Barnett | August 29, 2012 at 06:45 PM
It bothers me, too. It speaks volumes about what teachers, curriculum specialists (often called achievement specialists now), parents and administrators think about the purpose of reading.
Posted by: John T. Spencer | August 29, 2012 at 08:30 PM
This bothers me a great deal! For a company whose large part of business is selling BOOKS to CHILDREN this is poor marketing. Honestly, if this came in my mailbox, it would find its way into the circular file. It's really sad that a children's book publishing company is focused on test scores instead of inspiring kiddos to read.
Posted by: Vr2ltch | August 30, 2012 at 07:12 AM
Bill, it bothers me. Feels like tests are turning education into empty consumer culture.
Posted by: Ariel Sacks | September 02, 2012 at 02:25 PM