PBS高端访谈:美国教育共同核心标准的第一轮测试

 GWEN IFILL: Congress is on the verge¹ of finally approving a rewrite of the education law known as No Child Left Behind. The Senate is expected to pass it easily tomorrow. The House did so last week, and the president is expected to sign it. It will give states more control over public schools, but still requires annual student testing.

Tests have long been the subject of heated debate, especially those tied to the new and more ambitious Common Core standards. This fall, results are coming in for the first time, and in many places, they have been disappointing.

That includes New Jersey², where many parents have been concerned about excessive testing.

John Tulenko of Education Week has the story.

美国教育共同核心标准的第一轮测试

JOHN TULENKO: The Common Core standards, adopted by most states five years ago, raised the expectations for students and launched a massive effort to create new curriculum and train teachers to teach it. Now the results of Common Core tests are coming in, and they're feeling like a bucket of cold water.

DAVID HESPE, Education Commissioner³, New Jersey: The scores will show that we have great challenges ahead

JOHN TULENKO: New Jersey's education commissioner, David Hespe, recently shared results from his state. In English language arts, fewer than half of students were proficient⁴, and, in math, only about a third, a steep decline in proficiency⁵ rates compared to the old state test. The numbers are similar in many other states.

Commissioner Hespe asked the public not to panic.

DAVID HESPE: It's the first year of an initial test. We should be humble⁶. We should be patient. We should take our time to review all this information.

JOHN TULENKO: To help make sense of all this, we turned to a testing expert, Rutgers University professor Drew Gitomer.

So, first question for you is, what's it going to mean for New Jersey?

DREW GITOMER, Rutgers University: Well, when you raise the standards, as the Common Core has been trying to do, you're judging it against a higher level of expectations for students. And there may have been a false sense of proficiency under the previous state testing regime.

WOMAN: This is how specific the data is.

JOHN TULENKO: Officials in New Jersey and other states are counting on data from the new online tests, including PARCC and Smarter Balanced, to show teachers the way forward.

DAVID HESPE: We can use the information we're going to be getting from PARCC to help us close curriculum and instruction gaps in individual classrooms throughout the state of New Jersey. Our prior test could not do that. This test can.

JOHN TULENKO: But experts like Gitomer aren't so sure that even highly specialized⁷ test results will make a difference.

DREW GITOMER: Simply by providing that information and assuming that teachers and administrative⁸ leaders have the capacity to take that information and translate it into better practice seems to be — I'm skeptical⁹ of that.

JOHN TULENKO: Why? Because it's been tried before. Millions of students have already been taking, on average, eight state standardized¹⁰ tests per year.

And for more than 20 years, the federal government's been giving a national test, NAEP, that just sounded the alarm again about disappointing results in math and reading, especially for low-income and some minority students. But performance on these tests has proven very difficult to move.

Why should we think it's going to be different this time around?

DREW GITOMER: That's a very good question. This goes back to the old cliche¹¹ that you don't fatten¹² up a pig by weighing it all the time.

JOHN TULENKO: Even President Obama recently said public schools test too much.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble.

JOHN TULENKO: No more than 2 percent of the school year, the president now says, should be devoted¹³ to standardized testing. So, if tests aren't likely to change things, what will?

DREW GITOMER: I think we want to spend more of our effort in high-quality curricula, not on finer and finer diagnosis¹⁴ of students.

JOHN TULENKO: But Common Core's about more than tests. States used millions of their own money, and federal funds, to train teachers and develop curriculum to help students meet the new standards. And New Jersey wants to do more.

DAVID HESPE: We have to look at supports for students, tiered interventions¹⁵ for students. We need to look at expanding things like early childhood programs.

JOHN TULENKO: But it's not clear how the state will pay for all this. Federal grants to support the Common Core have run out.

And New Jersey's own general aid, which keeps schools running day in, day out, is about what it was in 2009. Similar conditions in many other states may limit their options too.

DREW GITOMER: With the Common Core, I think there was a lot of well-intentioned folks who were trying to raise the bar and use it as an impetus¹⁶ for improving instruction.

But I do think, if you look at what has happened in a variety of expensive initiatives, including No Child Left Behind, the emphasis has largely been on the testing, and not on what to do once we get the test results.

JOHN TULENKO: States say they will continue their efforts to improve instruction and hope to see better results next time around.

One state, Ohio, has taken a short cut. It's simply lowered the bar by setting its own more modest pass rates. And, not surprisingly, its students seem to be doing better.

I'm John Tulenko of Education Week reporting for the PBS NewsHour.

PBS NewsHour education coverage¹⁷ is part of American Graduate: Let's Make it Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

1 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

2 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

3 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

4 proficient   

adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家

参考例句：

• She is proficient at swimming.她精通游泳。
• I think I'm quite proficient in both written and spoken English.我认为我在英语读写方面相当熟练。

5 proficiency   

n.精通，熟练，精练

参考例句：

• He plied his trade and gained proficiency in it.他勤习手艺，技术渐渐达到了十分娴熟的地步。
• How do you think of your proficiency in written and spoken English?你认为你的书面英语和口语熟练程度如何？

6 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

7 specialized   

adj.专门的，专业化的

参考例句：

• There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
• These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。

8 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

9 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

10 standardized   

adj.标准化的

参考例句：

• We use standardized tests to measure scholastic achievement. 我们用标准化考试来衡量学生的学业成绩。
• The parts of an automobile are standardized. 汽车零件是标准化了的。

11 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

12 fatten   

v.使肥，变肥

参考例句：

• The new feed can fatten the chicken up quickly enough for market.新饲料能使鸡长得更快，以适应市场需求。
• We keep animals in pens to fatten them.我们把动物关在围栏里把它们养肥。

13 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

14 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

15 interventions   

n.介入，干涉，干预( intervention的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Economic analysis of government interventions deserves detailed discussion. 政府对经济的干预应该给予充分的论述。 来自辞典例句
• The judge's frequent interventions made a mockery of justice. 法官的屡屡干预是对正义的践踏。 来自互联网

16 impetus   

n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力

参考例句：

• This is the primary impetus behind the economic recovery.这是促使经济复苏的主要动力。
• Her speech gave an impetus to my ideas.她的讲话激发了我的思绪。

17 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。