Disabled Vietnam Vet Hot Dog Vendor Arrested Outside Met
Stuy Pyro Leaves Notes In Hieroglyphics
Tenants' Rights Flash Cards!
The Obamas' First State Dinner: Dazzling Fashion, Celebrities
Photos of D Train Murder Depict Bloody Panic
City schoolkids are woeful underperformers when it comes to taking a statewide history exam. Just over a quarter proved capable of passing an 8th grade exam that covered the U.S. Constitution, major wars the U.S. has fought in, and native cultures. The passing average for the rest of the state was 55%, which is hardly impressive, but twice as good as city kids' scores. We sympathize with the 2006 test takers, because we tried to take the test and quickly became incredibly bored around the time we reached question #7, which reduced an interesting subject to a stultifying two-tone diagram.
While the urban passing rate of 27% is a five-percentage-point drop from the prior year, kids are still doing better than in 2004, when only 19% managed to score even a passing grade. City social studies teachers describe an uphill battle, against more high-profile subjects and adolescent distraction:
"Social studies is an after thought [in city schools]," said Rick Figaro, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Brooklyn's Middle School 385.We wrote about the NY State math test earlier this year, where kids score higher, but still underperform statewide averages..The test is given in June, when eighth-graders are going to their proms and thinking about summer vacation.
We know this will probably result in a profound amount of eye-rolling among any adolescent readers Gothamist may have, but we'll still recommend that students take advantage of living in a 300-year-old city with a very exciting past. Did you know that Brooklyn was the site of a crucial early battle that could have ended the American Revolution just a month after it started? Rioting draftees almost tore the city apart during the Civil War? And Abraham Lincoln ignited his run for the Presidency after a passion-stirring address in the East Village? Learn it now kids, or you'll be doomed to repeat it. Literally, they'll make you take the class again.
Put your wits against the test - here's a PDF of the test.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
It's not just the city schools, this is goign on nationwide. I work for an educational publisher and we just wiped out our social studies program... no one's buying it.
Blame standardized testing and NCLB. Federal funding and jobs are tied to test scores, schools are competing against each other for dollars, and the dollars are driven by the scores. But no one thinks American history and citizenship is imporant enough to test for.
Could it be that politicians (on both sides of the aisle, mind you) might have a self-interest in young people not knowing too much about their history and their government?
A great resource for the history of New York is the Ric Burns PBS documentary series "New York." I didn't know any of the items you mentioned in this article until I watched the documentary.
er, its 2, right?
Where can we find the whole test?
I'm not surprised. It all comes back to the parents, and the discipline and values they impart to their children.
NM, I found it. (Click on the link in the words "woeful underperformers" and there's a link to it there)
yes, "whatever" the answer is 2.
While the parents are part of the problem, it doesn't help that we have an education system based on tenure for teachers and not results.
These standardized tests imposed by politicos who want to appear as if they are fixing the educational system are actually making it worse.
Kids don't learn the basics and how to think, they are taught for the test.
The standardized testing industry, like the scam artists behind the SATs, will always say their tests are not harmful, just like big tobacco used to do with their evil product. When kids are taught to these tests we have undereducated kids which is a big cancer that is spreading. (We would love to see the breakdown of campaign contributions from the testing industry.)
We need to teach the children of the city, state and country things they need to know and that will develop their minds instead of how to take standardized tests which only exist for political reasons and like 99.99999999999% things that exist for purely political reasons they should not exist at all.
What is needed is some major education reform based on what is best for kids instead of what is best for politicos and unions.
Yes, A=2, C=4 and B=1
Yeah, it's #2.
The site of the aforementioned Revolutionary Battle was Battle Hill, where Green-Wood Cemetary is now sitting. They have a concert coming up for Memorial Day. It's an amazing place and definitely worth a visit.
the problem is schools teach boring stuff. Look at that question above? it's ridiculous. who gives a crap. dates, names, places do not translate into an understanding of history. i'm not surprised the kids tune out.
Q: Brooklyn was the site of a crucial early battle that could have ended the American Revolution just a month after it started
A: The Battle of Long Island 1776
Q: Rioting draftees almost tore the city apart during the Civil War
A: The New York draft riots of 1863
Q:Abraham Lincoln ignited his run for the Presidency after a passion-stirring address in the East Village
A:Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Address
February 27, 1860
As a kid, I always absorbed history in the form of field trips and hands-on demos. Unfortunately, everyone's kid seems to have some sort of allergy these days, or especially accident-prone. It's too much of a liability to expose them to educational and influential experiences that can only result from being there. It makes me wonder if home schooling is a better option for the early years.
Never forget the Maryland 400 !
Old Stone House! Brooklyn and America will never forget the Maryland 400!
Our kids are failing to learn even the most basic facts about our own history and government, yet anyone who questions the need for an Arab-centric school is automatically branded as a racist ?!?
Are we really surprised that NYC 8th graders are idiots? In today's society, what else can we expect?
That's right..!
Look at that question above? it's ridiculous. who gives a crap. dates, names, places do not translate into an understanding of history. i'm not surprised the kids tune out.
Because it's certainly nonsensical to know how the different regions of the country developed.
Once again I have to ask - 8th graders have proms? What the hell?
Standardized testing may not be perfect, but what's the alternative? "Hey, everybody passes!"? I thought you had to go to Brown to get that kind of stupid treatment.
We're probably the first generation in history to not have to worry about the next generation taking our jobs.
Bittersweet.
School can be boring sometimes. So can life. We all have to do and learn things we don't enjoy. Ever do your own taxes? Balance your own checkbook? Write a cover letter? These are things that not many people enjoy doing, but most of us have to do them regardless.
I don't have kids, but if/when I do, they aren't going to be learning only at school. The educational system is hopelessly broken not because kids are learning the wrong material - they are learning the wrong material, but that can be fixed. The system is broken because the parents of these kids are either not involved in their kids' educations because they are too consumed with other pursuits, because they enable their kids and won't discipline them adequately, and because they don't spend much time reinforcing at home what kids are being taught in the classrooms.
If you know that your child is learning about American history, take him/her on a trip to Gettysburg or down to the Smithsonian Museum of American History if you can afford those kinds of trips. As others have pointed out, there are historical sites all over New York as well.
The test question cited involved no dates or names. If not for hames, dates, and places, what exactly is there to learn about history? I'm very curious what you'd have your kids learn in a history class.