yellowbirdliberal:

babsysblog:

boguskudos:

• How to do taxes
• What taxes are
• How to vote
• What political parties are
• How to write a resume/cover letter/anything related to getting a job
• How to write a check/balance a check book
• Anything to do with banking
• How to do loans for…

Sadly, I don’t think we’ll get close to learning any of these before college (there are a few of the things listed above that I learned in college) until we get school systems — public and private — to stop fetishizing standardized tests as a barometer for successful students and teachers.

When I was in school (boy, starting to date myself a bit here), there was but one standardized test: the SAT, which everyone took in their junior or senior year of high school as part of preparing for college. Now — in Virginia, at least — we have the SOLs (Standards of Learning), which require teachers to stick to a rigid curriculum and gives students a series of standardized tests at the end of the school year.

These tests do not dictate whether students advance to the next grade level; instead, they are used to “hold teachers accountable” and to determine schools’ accredited status (and, not surprisingly, how much funding these schools receive). This formula does not account for school resources, socio-economic background of the students, or whether or not the students are actually learning anything (instead of just memorizing things to perform well on a test).

(via foreverliberal23-deactivated201)