Prepare to be Appalled

From today's New York Times:
When 81% Passing Suddenly Becomes 18%

Here's a snippet from the article:

There were large drops in passing rates across New York, reflecting new requirements intended to correct for years of inflated results. The exams, state education officials said, had become too easy to pass, their definition of proficiency no longer meaningful. Citywide, the proficiency rate in English fell to 42 percent, from 69 percent last year; 54 percent reached grade level in math, down from 82 percent.

This is the brain trust that thinks it ought to be able to control homeschooling?!? Yipes!

They are failing the kids they already have in their clutches!

Why do I homeschool? A myriad of reasons, actually, but the utterly appalling things I read about the state of education in the New York Times would be enough...

I do not fault the teachers, who have their hands tied behind their backs by a broken system that demands accountability in the form of test results, prevents teachers from devoting themselves to meaningful curricula at the expense of test prep, and then jiggers the test results anyway, because, not surprisingly, test prep mania does not result in real learning.

I love educating my son. But I could never, ever, teach. As in, in a school environment...

Because my head would explode when the powers that be stopped me from actually teaching.

This is a disgrace. Our national education policy is a joke. Sleight of hand is not going to give us an educated citizenry. There needs to be a complete rethink. Stop blaming teachers, the kids, the parents, and look at what the educational bureaucracy has accomplished for all its self congratulatory scheming and demands for accountability via a measure that even they acknowledge is meaningless. The NEA says standardized tests are not an accurate measure of a student's knowledge or a teacher's performance. Why have the powers that be made them into the gold standard at the expense of all else? The educrats have broken things to the point that a simple bandaid and some bluster can no longer hide the gaping holes in their precious system.

This is the educational equivalent of The Emperor's New Clothes!