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Sunday, December 21, 2003

Dollars vs. Testing

The NYT magazine has a good article on the No Child Left Behind act by James Traub. He contends that debates over the act, abbreviated NCLB, have broken down into a question of which panacea is the more authentic: more money, or testing. He describes this as a false dichotomy. Ultimately, the schools need both. More money is the only way to induce highly qualified teachers (meaning academically qualified, not pedagogcally qualified) into the schools that need them most. Tests are neccesary to shine a light on those willing to accept academic failure either because their theory of education is mostly custodial, or because their theory is anti-academic.

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