When teaching to the test in schools isn’t enough

by David Safier

Want to get your elementary-aged school children into the best, most selective New York City public schools? Send them to test cram school. For a mere $75 to $150 per hour — I'm sure you can pay more if you're really selective — you can get your child into tutoring courses which do nothing but teach them how to maximize their standardized test scores.

Ironically, this is an example of copying from the educational "successes" of Asian countries. Students in countries like Japan and Korea are aggressively tutored to learn what their classroom teachers "taught" them, but far more important, they learn all the tricks to taking standardized tests. Then, when they turn out to be better test takers than U.S. students, we praise their schools and talk about what a lousy job our schools are doing.

The number of elementary school students scoring ridiculously high on New York City's standardized tests is soaring thanks to these young, tutor-manufactured test-bots. Some people, putting on reality blinders and just looking at the numbers, would say that shows NYC schools are improving.