Sats boycott hits hundreds of schools (BBC) {standardized testing!}

[eppur_se_muova]

Hundreds of schools in England are staging a boycott of one of the cornerstones of primary education, the national schools tests, known as Sats.

About 600,000 10 and 11-year-olds are due to take the tests from Monday.

But heads and deputies from two big unions voted for a boycott.

BBC News has contacted 113 councils and found that - among those who responded - 15% of schools are not doing the tests.
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The head teachers say that the tests damage children's education because they encourage teachers to "teach to the test", so that other subjects are squeezed out of the curriculum.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/education/10103165.stm




Sounds like the Brits have stronger union support -- no surprise, considering what Repugs have done to gut unions in this country.

[Warpy]

1. They sure as hell didn't teach to the test when I was in school

in the US thousands of years ago. That's probably because I went to a school that counted a student successful if he or she didn't quit at 16 to go work in the cotton mills. Being on the college track wasn't the usual thing.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Do you think it would be better to teach to the test?

Cause it's not. :)

[Warpy]

3. Hardly. I just find it odd that kids in the UK would complain

about it when it didn't happen here until NCLB idiocy came in.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Kids in the UK have had to face the "11-plus" tests since the 1940's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven_plus_exam

At least in its original form, it was even more of a tool for preserving class divisions than NCLB.

[Reader Rabbit]

4. Man, if only our unions would do something like that.

We can always dream, right?