Limit number of children in heavily

China may scrap limit on number of children 27 August -

Despite ample evidence of the flaws, biases and inaccuracies of standardized exams, NCLB and related state and federal policies, such as Race to the Top RTTT and the NCLB waivers, have pressured schools to use tests to measure student learning, achievement gaps, and teacher and school quality, and to impose sanctions based on test scores.

This is on top of using tests to determine if children are ready for school; track them into instructional levels; diagnose learning disabilities, retardation and other handicaps; and decide whether to promote, retain in grade, or graduate. School systems also use tests to guide and control curriculum content and teaching.

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Aren't these valid uses of test scores? Measurement experts agree that no test is good enough to serve as the sole or primary basis for any of these important educational decisions.

A nine-year study by the National Research Council concluded that the emphasis on testing yielded little learning progress but caused significant harm.

NCLB demonstrated what happens when tests are misused. Negative consequences include narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, pushing students out of school, driving teachers out of the profession, and undermining student engagement and school climate.

High school graduation tests, used by 25 states, disproportionately penalize low-income and minority students, along with English language learners and the disabled. They do not promote the knowledge, skills and habits needed for success in college or skilled work.

Tracking generally hurts slower students but does not help more advanced students. Too often, the assumption is that low-scoring students need low-level remediation rather than enrichment, challenge and support. Retention in grade, flunking or holding a student back, is almost always academically and emotionally harmful.

It generally does not lead to sustained academic improvement, lowers student self-esteem, and leads to dropping out. Screening and readiness tests are frequently inaccurate and can lead to misdiagnosis of student learning needs.

Water Utility Tests Commonly Underreport Atrazine Contamination Spikes

Who is most often hurt by these practices? Students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds, English language learners, and students with disabilities, are more likely to be denied diplomas, retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or unnecessarily put in remedial education programs.

They are more likely to receive a "dumbed-down" curriculum, based heavily on rote drill and test practice. This ensures they will fall further and further behind their peers. How do tests control curriculum and instruction? In many districts, standardized exam results have become the single most important indicator of school performance.

As a result, teachers and administrators feel enormous pressure to ensure that test scores consistently rise. Schools narrow and manipulate the curriculum to match the test, while teachers tend to cover only what is likely to be on the next exam. Methods of teaching conform to the multiple-choice format.

Education increasingly resembles test prep. It is easy to see why this could happen in low-scoring districts. But some high-scoring schools and districts, striving to keep their top rank, also succumb.

The pressure is so great that a growing number of administrators and teachers have engaged in various kinds of cheating to boost scores. Are test results a good way to measure teacher quality? Student tests cannot reliably, validly and fairly be used to judge educators. Researchers looked at popular value-added methods of teacher evaluation and found them fraught with errors and unreliable.

Knowledge of the arbitrary and inaccurate consequences will deter some strong young candidates from becoming teachers or principals, and drive good, experienced educators away from working in the most high-need schools. Don't standardized tests provide accountability? Tests that measure as little and as poorly as multiple-choice exams cannot provide meaningful accountability.

Instead of being accountable to parents, community, teachers and students, schools become "accountable" to an unregulated testing industry.

Not only do students get an inferior education, but the public gets the mistaken impression that education is improving.

If we do not use standardized tests, how will we know how students and programs are doing? Standardized tests can be one part of a comprehensive assessment system. However, they offer just a small piece of the picture. Better methods of evaluating student needs and progress already exist.The draft Children and Families Bill contains provisions that propose a 26 week limit on the process of care proceedings, and this suggestion has become the focus of some debate as the bill makes its way through parliament.

Number 68 April Young Adult Drinking. Too often today’s headlines bring news of yet another alcohol-related tragedy involving a young person—a case of fatal alcohol poisoning on a college campus or a late-night drinking–driving crash.

Nov 15,  · Despite a reduction in some pollutants, the study found no evidence of a decline inside the number of children with reduced lung capacities or asthmatic symptoms since the implementation of the zone in London.. The authors stress which more ambitious control measures are needed to improve childhood respiratory health.

Professor Richard Allsop’s RAC Foundation report found that the number of fatal and serious collisions near fixed speed cameras dropped by 27% after the cameras were put in place.

Although many people believe that governments do not have the right to limit the number of children a couple can have, it will be argued that they should have the right to confine the number of offspring one family can have in heavily populated countries for three reasons: the earth does not have enough resources for all people, it also causes.

China may scrap limit on number of children 27 Aug - Children use an Ofo shared bike at a residential area for migrant workers in a village on the outskirts of Beijing, April 16,