Education Reform.

The pioneer of China's education reform for its ambitious goal of cultivating innovative talent -- and it's students refuse to take tests.

Obey, Memorize - Paying to be programmed

The process of mainstream ‘education’ swamps the left side of the brain with the system’s version of reality by communicating ‘logical’ and ‘rational’ information based on ‘observable evidence’. Students are then told to retain this information, and revise it thoroughly, before taking something called an ‘exam’ in which they must repeat to the system what the system has told them to believe.

If they do this really well they pass their exams and ‘progress’. Well done, Johnny, well done Jane, good marks. If they go on doing this really well they might even go to university and get a degree to mark their degree of programming. How programmed are you? I’ve got a first class degree. Oh, first class programming, well done you.

Article continues here.

Cheating?

Atlanta Cheating Scandal

Here's a quote from this article about the cheating in Georgia "Matthew M. Chingos, a researcher in the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, points out that states spend about $1.7 billion a year on testing administration,"

What???? Did you know how many of your taxes dollars are spent on test guards rather than education/enrichment? This "expert" goes on to say that 1.7 BILLION is just a fraction of the education budget and it should be higher, so that kids won't cheat.

When you consider this conversation about the merits or lack there of, of testing, who is speaking? It is not the students or the parents or even statistics on the ratio of successful test takers to happy, productive, creative people in society. It is the test designers, the institutions that read the scores and then decide whether or not you are fit to attend, the administration - it is those that directly profit $$$ from additional testing that are promoting the necessity of tests.

Maybe kids are cheating because they see that tests really don't matter, not to the things that matter to them. This is not a problem that can be fixed with more "enforcement". It is a call for change.