Letters

A School Is More Than an A, B or C

Published: November 10, 2007

To the Editor:

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Related

50 New York Schools Fail Under Rating System (November 6, 2007)

Re “50 City Schools Get Failing Grade in a New System” (front page, Nov. 6):

No doubt the mayor and the schools chancellor will now be the recipients of unending grief from those schools and principals who feel they were graded unfairly.

Grading schools is as absurd as grading students. The criteria for both are equally detrimental to achieving the goals of a truly useful education: self-awareness, an engaged citizenry and the skills necessary to generate meaningful, dignified work.

Until we address the core societal conditions that now make such goals unattainable for the vast majority, there is little hope that obfuscating parlor tricks like high-stakes testing, free cellphones for every child and schoolwide report cards will serve as successful incentives. (紐約時報讀者投書)

obfuscating parlor tricks like high-stakes testing 注

ob·fus·cate (ŏb'fə-skāt', ŏb-fŭs'kāt')

tr.v., -cat·ed, -cat·ing, -cates.

1. To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: “A great effort was made . . . to obscure or obfuscate the truth” (Robert Conquest).
2. To render indistinct or dim; darken: The fog obfuscated the shore.

[Latin obfuscāre, obfuscāt-, to darken : ob-, over; see ob– + fuscāre, to darken (from fuscus, dark).] v. tr. - 弄暗, 使迷亂, 使模糊
日本語 (Japanese)
v. - 困惑させる, 不明瞭にする, 混乱させる, 当惑させる, わかりにくくする

parlor trick　（ちゃちな）お座敷芸, 隠し芸.

The practice of making retention decisions on the basis of the results of a single test — called “high-stakes testing”