The Global Achievement Gap: Chapter 2

5 main points:

 The most academically well-prepared students aren't learning the 7 survival skills. Teachers are just giving the the answers.

The quality of teaching: Teachers want to make a difference, but they have to teach what their students are tested on. Teachers are told that teaching subject content is more important than teaching skills. Teaching for the sake of succeeding on the state and national standardized tests is quickly becoming an epidemic in our nations schools, one that is profoundly infecting students and their ability to become critical thinkers.

Department of Defense school systems are an important lesson for all schools to improve the academic achievement of students and to close the achievement gap. They have eight recommendations which are: High expectations for all, small schools, staff development, sufficient financial resources, organizational coherence, parental involvement. These eight recommendations go a long way in explaining how these schools get better results. They also do a better job of closing the achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students. 

Because of No Child Left Behind, the cirriculum in both elementary and secondary schools all across the country are being limited only to what is being tested. This means that there is an increase in the time to teach tested subjects such as English/language arts and Math. It means that there is a reduced time for other subjects such as social studies, art, science, music, physical education, and lunch or recess. Basically, there is only one cirriculum in American public schools today and that is Test-Prep.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development administered a remarkable test of problem-solving skills, in addition to other assessments, in all 41 countries involved. The goal was to measure what they call "cross-curricular competencies"  Our overall score was behind twenty eight other countries.

Basically, as we work to close the achievement gap between middle class and poor students by requiring more and more standardized testing, the risk of not attending to the global achievement gap increases every day.