Teaching To A Test

MY GRANDFATHER was reported to have said that if you put a gun in a man's hand, the first thing he wants to do is use it. Since I wasn't there, and don't remember my grandfather, regretably, I have no idea whether the quote is accurate, but from what I have heard about my grandfather, he could very well have uttered such. At any rate, it rings true, somehow. And the same goes for power. Particularly for people, such as politicians, who strive ceaselessly to gain power, it is not enough simply to gain and have power; power must be used. Every president of the united states wants to make his mark on history. Every american president wants to be seen as a champion of education, of the poor, of the people, blah blah blah. George Bush has his brilliant "no child left behind" educational legacy, in which the federal government steps in and imposes all kinds of standardized nationwide measuring techniques to determine which schools, teachers, and administrators are worthy, and which are not. A lot of teachers i know hate "no child left behind". They say its nothing more than harmful meddling by the federal givernment which damages teacher morale and unfairly labels students and their schools. Now enter obama, determined to one up bush, as all presidents are determined to make the people forget about their predecessors achievements, if any. His cute catch phrase is "common core", which establishes standardized educational goals, sort of like an extension of one child left behind. One of its strong points is that it encourages analytical reading, for instance. But here again, all this federal stuff has little impact on the local schools, which are, after all, made up of local, not federal people. On the internet there recently appeared a copy of a test given to eigth graders in american in 1912. It is doubtful whether ten percent of today's eigth graders, or ten percent of the general adult population could pass it. And the questions on it are perfectly fair, rewasonable, relevant, and important, things that every educated person at eigth grade level or above should know. When i become president, i will give every american a copy of this test, and tell the country "let's all get to the point where we can pass this test, then, go from there". In order to pass it, one would have to study some math, spelling, reading, geography; just the basic stuff, stuff that we seem to be leaving out in our modern haste to get everyone keyboarding. We'd better hurry, B 4 txt splng takes over. The kids of 1912 had mark twain to read. Today we have lady gaga to listen to, so, again, we'd better hurry, and start teaching to that 1912 eight grade test, lickity split.