It wasn't the scores... it was level of skill the scores represent that's holding the kids back. I.e., the failure of the kids, the 'rents, and the schools.

But it ain't the scores.

No fair!!! Your husband answered the question correctly before I had a chance to!!!

John is correct. Therefore, Jack is correct, also.

Wait! I would have gotten it too, but I have an unfair advantage because I live in this state and know how crappy our educational system is... which is why I send my kids to Catholic School.

Get this... we have a State test our public schools take. They get graded A-F, based on how their schools perform. It's a whole complicated thing I won't get into, but this year, they were doing flips because so many schools were elevated to A schools and there were fewer F schools... however, later on they looked at the schools based on the National standards that I guess the Bush Admin came up with, our schools still fell way short. Nice, eh?

I have to also say, I'm not sure how much at fault the teachers really hold. The teachers I have met have been very committed individuals. In my opinion, they are up against some hellish constraints. We have large class sizes and I think the quality of the a lot of the students and the families from which they come are poor at best. Sweeping generalization.

I am zoned for a woefully inadequate elementary school, which is really why I send my kids to private school. The school we are zoned for is 80% minority, yet when they have PTA meetings, 90-95% of the people who show up are white.

It's an unfortunate situation.

Let's see, growing up I was in 1st grade with 39 other children in my class - one teacher - a nun of course. No aids. Hmmmm - learned to read write and do my basic math just fine. In every other class in different states, I was never EVER in a classroom of less than 25 kids - no teacher aids. I learned.

Blaming class size is a cop out. It's a multiplicity of things. To varying degrees - No discipline, too much tv, too much junk food, not enough parental input, not enough teacher help.

As my son was going through school, he was having learning problems. When I looked to the teachers to help me - I got NOTHING! Every friggin' teacher whined about how freaking overworked they are. All I wanted was for them to sign a stupid paper at the end of the day that showed what homework my son had to do. Do you know - not ONE teacher would do that for me? Not in public school, not in parochial school. Zip zilch nada.

The only way my son got through school is because we gave up vacations so we could afford to get him special tutoring. I wasn't able to teach him - I am not a teacher - something I fully admit and which is why I didn't homeschool.

Yeah, lots of problems - but the biggest seems to be that none of the teachers, who deal well with the easy children, want to be bothered with the difficult ones - my daughter was easy, my son was not... just my little take.

The headline isn't all that bad - we've all seen a heckuva lot worse. I think it just arises out of the edu-speak for failing to graduate...being "held back".

I've also met good teachers. I've met very bad ones too though. Good or bad, they don't like explaining themselves.

And the school administrators I've talked to - across the board, school board members, principals, assistant principals, librarians, program heads, secretaries, you name it - are some of the lyingest, most fundamentally dishonest, avoiding, obfuscatory asshats you can find anywhere on the planet.

Other than that they're fine.

In some cases, viscious Test Scores have mutated and wiped out entire villages....

I think there is good and bad in every category when it comes to careers. That doesn't exempt the teaching profession or any of the admistrative positions, although you know the saying about what floats to the top.

I do have to wonder what is going on in our State University system where a good number of our teachers receive their educations...

what's ironic is that in the world of AffAction, high test scores hold back thousands.

Well, I'll go John and Jack one better cuz both deal with symptoms -- jeez, I'm saying that a lot lately. The scores are actually reflective of student attitude to education. If it had valence for them, they'd acquire the skills necessary to have the scores. That the scores are lousy is a definite factor of valence. A secondary factor might be academic aptitutde. However, brains are not always necessary for success; hard work is.

my take on it:

held back? held back from what? surely these kids weren't heading to college?