How to Raise Scores

The LA Times has an article here describing how most of the "miracles" in raised test scores were actually fraudulent.  It's pretty shocking.  The comments are centering on blaming students and their families for the low scores.

I taught high school English for 35 years, and during that time had many students from lower socio-economic classes.  Yes, of course what happens in their home is important, but we can’t do much about that.  We can do something fairly easy:  We  can make developing a love of reading in children an absolute priority.

Avid readers read better, write better, concentrate better, and do better in all of their subjects, across the board.   Stephen Krashen, from UCLA, has much research showing that teaching skills is just testing skills.  Kids acquire skills through wide, avid reading.

Unfortunately, this emphasis on standardized testing and curriculum is turning kids off to reading in droves.  Really, a malignant foreign power couldn’t have planned better how to wreck schools for children.