We place our student teachers in a large Atlanta-area school district that
is in the process of moving to a system whereby students must pass a
standardized "gateway" exam to get from middle school to high school.
Students who don't pass it will be able to stay in the system, but will not
go to the regular high schools. They'll go instead to "bridge" schools
(it's not clear what they provide a bridge to, since they can't get a
regular diploma when they're done with their schooling). Perhaps "bridge"
means that this state of limbo will hold them till they're able to pass the
test. You can imagine what it'd be like to teach in a school whose sole
raison d'etre is to prepare students for a standardized test.
The test is predicated on knowledge of the district's "AKS" (sounds like an
assault rifle, though stands for Academic Skills Knowledge), which is a set
of presumably essential skills across the curriculum. Knowledge of these
skills is determined by performance on bubble-item multiple choice tests.
Presumably, other kinds of knowledge that students get through their
engagement with the curriculum is not "core" and provides no reason for
advancement in school or being awarded a diploma.
I imagine that we're a few law suits away from resolving this one, but I
wouldn't be surprised to learn that this sort of thing will be happening
elsewhere.
Peter