The trouble is not that we are sorting [grading] students badly -- a problem that logically should be addressed by trying to do it better. The trouble is that we are sorting them at all. Are we doing so in order to segregate students by ability and teach them separately? The harms of this practice have been well established (Oakes 1985). Are we turning schools into "bargain-basement personnel screening agencies for business" (Campbell 1974, p. 145)? Whatever use we make of sorting, the process itself is very different from -- and often incompatible with -- the goal of helping students to learn.

"Our mission is to have business leaders, arts professionals, educators and others work together to educate governments, the public and the media to the need for returning Arts to the national curricula. China and others have determined, as we must, that STEAM education is a national priority issue."

For decades, a single factor has been used to determine access to these Specialized High Schools -- a student's rank-order score on a 2.5 hour multiple choice test called the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). Under this admissions policy, regardless of whether a student has achieved straight As from kindergarten through eighth grade or whether he or she demonstrates other signs of high academic potential, the only factor that matters for admission is his or her score on a single test. Because there is a limit to what any single factor can predict about a person's academic promise, let alone his or her potential to succeed and thrive in life, admissions decisions based solely on a high-stakes test have been roundly criticized by educational experts and social scientists. They also defy common sense. By relying upon a test as the sole criterion, the admissions policy for the Specialized High Schools does not fully capture any student's academic merit or his or her potential.

... during 2005-6, blacks made up 4.8 percent of the Bronx Science student body, according to city figures, down from 11.8 percent in 1994-95... At Brooklyn Technical High School, the proportion of black students had declined to 14.9 percent from 37.3 percent 11 years ago, and at Stuyvesant, blacks made up 2.2 percent of the student body, down from 4.4 percent.

The percentage of black and Hispanic students offered admission to the city's elite public high schools inched lower this year, continuing a decade-long slide, according to the results of the city's admissions process released Friday [February 11, 2011]. Just 4 percent of the students offered admission to the seven specialized high schools were black. Notifications were made on Friday. Six percent were Hispanic, 35 percent Asian, and 30 percent white.

"I think that Stuyvesant and these other schools are as fair as fair can be... There's nothing subjective about this. You pass the test, you get the highest score, you get into the school -- no matter what your ethnicity, no matter what your economic background is. That's been the tradition in these schools since they were founded, and it's going to continue to be."

Standardized tests have been a part of American education since the mid-1800s. Their use skyrocketed after 2002's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated annual testing in all 50 states. U.S. students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st place in 2009, with a similar decline in science and no change in reading. Failures in the education system have been blamed on rising poverty levels, teacher quality, tenure policies, and increasingly on the pervasive use of standardized tests.

No. Tests that measure as little and as poorly as multiple-choice tests cannot provide genuine accountability. Pressure to teach to the test distorts and narrows education. Instead of being accountable to parents, community, teachers and students, schools become "accountable" to a completely unregulated testing industry.

"It would be like going to the doctor and having your temperature taken, and the temperature telling us everything we need to know about you. It doesn't. It gives us one number on one day, and it tells us your health and wellness at that one moment. But it's not really that useful a piece of information taken in isolation."

A backlash against high-stakes standardized testing is sweeping through U.S. school districts as parents, teachers, and administrators protest that the exams are unfair, unreliable and unnecessarily punitive -- and even some longtime advocates of testing call for changes.

The objections come even as federal and state authorities pour hundreds of millions of dollars into developing new tests, including some for children as young as five.

In a growing number of states, scores on standardized tests weigh heavily in determining whether an eight-year-old advances to the next grade with her classmates; whether a teen can get his high school diploma; which teachers keep their jobs; how much those teachers are paid; and even which public schools are shut down or turned over to private management.

Parents frustrated by the system say they're not against all standardized tests but resent the many hours their kids spend filling in multiple-choice bubbles and the wide-ranging consequence that poor scores carry. They say the testing regime piles stress on children and wastes classroom time. In elementary schools, they protest that a laser focus on the subjects tested, mostly math and reading, crowds out science, social studies and the arts. In high schools, they're fighting standardized exams that can determine a student's course grade in subjects from geometry to world history.

"K-12 students who practice demonstrating their knowledge and skills on standardized tests throughout their school career become better prepared to meet future educational, occupational, and professional goals. They will be ready for the standardized tests assessing complex achievement that are used for admission to selective colleges and graduate and professional schools. In addition, K-12 students will be prepared for tests required for occupational licensing for trades as well as for intellectually demanding professions such as law and medicine. The American Board of Internal Medicine, for example, uses multiple-choice, standardized tests to assess a physician's judgment before he can be certified in an advanced medical specialty."

"Private schools have traditionally used standardized tests as only one of many tools in their assessment kit bag. With their smaller school populations, private school assessment programs can probe more deeply and can use diagnostic tools not possible in public school settings. Let's face it: monolithic testing companies are a logical response to a monolithic educational system. Private schools with their boutique approach to education can afford to stick with their customized approach to student assessment."

K12's K-8 curriculum includes subjects such as Math, Science, Literature, Language, Vocabulary, Composition, and History. As an option, Art, Music, and/or a foreign language can also be added to a typical curriculum. A student's schedule is arranged in a weekly, or daily calendar format displaying each subject that must be done for the day. The student clicks on a lesson in the list for that day, completes all of the assignments, then takes the assessment, or test. The assignments include book reading, questions following the reading, science experiments, online flash cards, math problems, and essays. By clicking on a "Lesson Lists" tab, the student can choose a subject, and complete as many lessons and units in one day as he/she would like to. The student may also check his/her progress in a certain subject by clicking on the "Progress" tab. However, the student must complete their core courses to 90% or better by the first Friday of June and have at least 180 days of school attendance.

A ... possible explanation for the weak performance relates to inadequate or insufficient instruction. Based on our findings, K12 devotes considerably fewer resources to instructional salaries and benefits for employees. This reduced spending on salaries is linked to the fact that K12 has more than three times the number of students per teacher compared with overall public school student-teacher ratios. The higher student-teacher ratio and the reduced spending on teacher salaries, as well as on salaries for all other categories of staff typically found in schools, help explain the poor performance of K12's schools. Also related to the issue of adequacy of instruction, we found that K12's math scores, which are more dependent on instruction, were substantially lower than reading scores, which are more influenced by students' home environment.

As part of a seismic shift in online learning that is reshaping higher education, Coursera, a year-old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, will announce on Tuesday that a dozen major universities are joining the venture. In the fall, Coursera will offer 100 or more free massive open online courses or MOOCS, that are expected to draw millions of students and adult learners globally.

What seems to be clear to me is that scarce educational funds are being spent on technological solutions to human problems while many of the human problems are being dismissed as technological. Nurturing a child who has been abused and discarded by her society so she wants to learn can never be accomplished by relying on a technological solution when what she needs is someone who makes her care enough about applying herself to become a successful learner: and that person is a teacher, not a computer.

"To improve learning and provide meaningful accountability, schools and districts cannot rely solely on standardized tests. The inherent limits of the instruments allow them only to generate information that is inadequate in both breadth and depth. Thus, states [including New Jersey]-- districts and schools must find ways to strengthen classroom assessments and to use the information that comes from these richer measures to inform the public."

"In order to successfully participate in an online program, a student must be well organized, self-motivated, and possess a high degree of time management skills in order to keep up with the pace of the course. For these reasons, online education is not appropriate for younger students (i.e. elementary or secondary school age), and other students who are dependent learners and have difficulty assuming responsibilities required by the online paradigm." (emphasis added)

"Teaching will become a very, very large occupation, dominated by those trained in core academic subjects and special education. Because of the large size of this occupation, teachers' salaries may likely decline in real dollars. As the field continues to balloon and the large older portion of the teaching force retires, teaching will be practiced predominantly by beginners and the young. But beginners, the largest group of the largest occupation, are also the least stable and, our analysis also shows, that instability has been increasing."

"The retirement rate of teachers in New Jersey has also ballooned. The New Jersey Education Association said the number of teachers' union members whose retirement applications were submitted and approved by the pension fund almost doubled to about 7,250 in 2010 from 2009."

"Simple comparisons between children in poor families and children in non-poor families using national data sets indicate that poor children are more likely to do worse on indices of school achievement than non-poor children are. Poor children are twice as likely as non-poor children to have repeated a grade, to have been expelled or suspended from school, or to have dropped out of high school. They are also 1.4 times as likely to be identified as having a learning disability in elementary or high school than their non-poor counterparts. A study called "The Impact of Family Income on Child Achievement" (by Gordon Dahl and Lance Lochner) measured the consequences of growing up poor for a child's math and reading achievement: a $1,000 increase in parental income raises math test scores by 2.1 percent and reading test scores by 3.6 percent."

It is not just the universities and research institutions -- like Columbia, Rockefeller and New York Universities -- that can list their Nobel laureates. New York City's public school system has produced more than 25, according to data from the Board of Education. Bronx High School of Science has produced at least six, while its rival, Stuyvesant High School, has produced four. Far Rockaway High School, DeWitt Clinton and James Madison have produced two apiece. CUNY has 12 graduates who have won the Nobel.

In Texas, for example, of every 100 students who enrolled in a public college, 79 started at a community college, and only 2 of them earned a two-year degree on time; even after four years, only 7 of them graduated. Of the 21 of those 100 who enrolled at a four-year college, 5 graduated on time; after eight years, only 13 had earned a degree.

1. Participate in the governance of the educational system;
2. Independently monitor the system;
3. Receive adequate training and information that would ensure effective participation in the system;
4. Employ effective and timely remedies when rights are being violated.