The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) represented, in the United States at least, the triumph of measurable outcomes over meaningful learning. Under its regime, schools were judged by their students’ performance on standardised assessments. The consequences of poor scores were severe: funding cuts, staff dismissals, school closures. The entirely predictable result was what educators came to call “teaching to the test,” a practice in which classroom instruction was narrowed to the specific content and formats that would appear on state exams.
As someone who graduated before then, this was a problem long before NCLB. It’s also a fundamental misunderstanding about the purpose of American schools. Schools have two goals:
Babysit kids, so that both Dad and Mom can go to work
Train kids to do arbitrary, bullshit tasks that don’t have any meaning or purpose
Any actual learning when I went to school was tertiary, and Critical Thinking was constantly shot down. If you want an A, you don’t Think Critically, you regurgitate what you were told, even if it was wrong.
As someone who graduated before then, this was a problem long before NCLB. It’s also a fundamental misunderstanding about the purpose of American schools. Schools have two goals:
Any actual learning when I went to school was tertiary, and Critical Thinking was constantly shot down. If you want an A, you don’t Think Critically, you regurgitate what you were told, even if it was wrong.