The performance of American high school students is falling. Reading scores are spiraling downward according to a report released Feb. 22, and the education system’s focus on image is likely to blame.
The report, conducted by the Nation’s Report Card, used a sample of 21,000 high school seniors, and the results found that 7 percent fewer students can read at or above the basic level than in 1992. And the basic level is the lowest notch of the three-part academic totem pole of the Nation’s Report Card, which indicates students have only a partial mastery of knowledge and skills at the 12th grade level.
But despite the falling scores, more students are attending college and more high schools are focusing on more advanced curriculums. And even as advanced placement courses that earn college credit become more popular, students’ reading scores continue to fall.
The culprit: grade inflation and too much image concern.
Welcome to the era of “success” for everyone, where no one fails. It is the time when students can miss most of the questions, but try hard. And it is the effort that counts, instead of assessment of actual progress. The only problem is the lack of Darwinism in our school system. Everyone is allowed to pass, and the ones that should not, pass anyway and continue through the systems without the knowledge needed to continue.
Image is another problem leading to a correlation between failing reading scores and an increase of “rigorous” courses. Rigorous courses should help the students, but they do not seem to be working. Darvin Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, said the American education systems should recalculate how hard classes titled “advanced” actually are.
“The findings also suggest that we need to do much more about the level of rigor associated with the courses that high school students are taking,” Winick said.
We recommend the school systems of every state to reconsider the purity of their intentions and put the students first. It would be better to make sure every student can read before teaching. This is the future of our country.
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