American Schools: Full of Bad Writers

As we're all fairly adept writers (being in a writing-based rhetoric class) I found it interesting that this New York Times article reported that only one third of eighth graders are capable of writing at the standardized "proficient" level - and only one in four high schoolers. These results were gathered according to standardized test results from a test given last year. Students previously reported to have "poor" writing skills have showed minor improvement. Apparently, education officials are pleased with the results.

Boys were worse than girls (sorry Linc and Doug), with around 40% of eighth grade girls performing at the "proficient" level and 20% of boys. The trend in schools seems to be that boys don't think writing will be important after they graduate. Overall, 33% of eighth graders are able to write with proficiency. What irritates me about this whole article is that people are pleased with these results. The article reports that these are the best test results ever. I'm glad we live in a country where we can get excited at 33% of our students performing at a proficient level. Aren't these the future leaders of the country we're talking about?

Additionally, the children who did perform well showed no improvement. This, I believe, is due to the educational system's obsession with standardized testing, setting a universal standards that children are expected to perform at, and those performing higher are not given any more challenging material.

Rhetorically, the reaction of officials to these results seems to me like forced enthusiasm in our educational system. We do not want to be disappointed with our children or the school system, so we allow ourselves to believe that 33% proficiency is good enough. Now, I know standardized testing is not necessarily an accurate measure of academic capacity. Nonetheless, the fact that the administration is so happy about this seems a little odd.

One congressman drew laughs when he blamed the lack in writing proficiency on the slow deterioration of the sentence due to fragmented writing through instant messaging and text messaging. Many thought this notion quite absurd. Nonetheless, after attending a school where I was asked on a number of dates through poorly written text messages, I can't help but think that communication skills are suffering in some way.

I wish officials would stop being so happy about mediocrity. Perhaps I'm being heartless here, but I feel like we should be aiming much higher.