Stop the Race to the Top

• Obama’s Race to the Top further entrenches the noxious features of NCLB: auditing through false metrics, accountability without regard to circumstance, distrust of teachers, and a fixation on test scores instead of learning. The real winners are those who will manage scores of new charter schools and those who sell test-prep programs. Authoritarian, test-centered, bureaucratic schools cannot educate well and cannot prepare students well for their roles in democracy. Instead of ritualistically pursuing high scores on dumbed-down, deeply flawed “proficiency” tests, we should be creating schools in which students can thrive, learn, care, and act.

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