ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS: Thoughtful questions raised here about whether more testing really helps kids prepare for college in an essay by Carol Burris, a Principal in the South Side High School in New York, and a blue-ribbon educator by many accounts. Writing in the Washington Post, Burris agrees that college remediation rates are "unacceptably high," but doubts that "tougher tests will make students smarter." What will help kids, say, learn to read? "Giving students access to excellent literacy-rich pre-school experiences and intensive, research-based reading programs in the first years of schooling, on the other hand, will," she writes.
