“2.02 Print – Magazines and Journal” – FLVS Journalism 1 Assignment

Assignment Requirements 

For this assessment you must select a credible magazine that engages in credible reporting. Determine how to submit a reader response and what the submission guidelines and requirements are. To find submission guidelines, you can normally look at the reader response letters. There is often a blurb stating how you can submit your own response and what guidelines you need to follow. If you are unsure, check the magazine’s website or call the publication to ask.

Draft a reader response to an article that is appropriate for publication, and then submit the response to the magazine. Your response should be at least two paragraphs long, or longer if the magazine requirements state that. Turn a copy of the response in to your instructor for a grade. If your response gets published, let your instructor know!

Your response must meet the following guidelines:

• It must respond to an article in the magazine (direct your instructor to the article).
• It must be appropriate for the audience.
• It must meet the magazine guidelines for reader responses (copy these for your instructor).
• It must be grammatically correct.
• It must express an understanding of the topic addressed in the article.

My Response will be to an article called “Performance Anxiety”, and it can be found here“Performance Anxiety” by The Economist

The following is my reader response:

This situation, is a huge example of why testing should not determine whether or not teachers receive a salary raise. Let’s start with this:

Okay, so who on earth would be so dumb as to look at a just one school’s test scores, in mathematics alone, jump from 1% success to 46% success  over the course of one year, and not suspect something is very wrong with this scenario. Any average Joe on the street can look at that and say, “wait a second this looks a little bit fishy”. But no, this resulted in the head of Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent, Beverley Hall, being named the National Superintendent of The Year by the A.A.S.A., in February 2009. Not only was Mrs. Hall named, National Superintendent of the Year, she also walked off the job with a nice, hefty $5,000 bonus, and all the teachers involved got bonuses and awards too.

Let’s look at what would happen if test scores did not dictate this predicament.In the case that our student’s test scores did not dictate a possible raise for our teachers, teacher’s would be less focused on making sure that their student’s test scores are perfect, and more focused on actually teaching the students the material, which itself would result in near perfect scores.

As the daughter of a Teacher, myself, and someone who can think for herself, just a little bit, I can tell you that with this type of a scenario, perfect test scores, dictating raises in teacher pay, only insures that the worst possible thing for our students could happen, i.e. teaching to the test. Teaching to the test is not teaching our students a single thing, but how to pass the test, and in the end get a diploma that they simply do not deserve or have nothing to show for, because they only know how to pass the test, they can’t do the equations, problems or processes. Then, these same students, proceed to the next grade, or heaven forbid go to a different school where they are expected to know how to do that material, and build upon what they know. Or how about what happens when these same students move on to college level work, and don’t know how to do a darn thing? Who cares, the teachers don’t, all they care about is the fact that they just got their nice juicy raise, they still have and job, and that’s it!

Personally I think that this should be a lesson to Public School Districts. All the teachers who did not plead guilty were rightly indicted. The superintendent, sadly died of breast cancer, before she could be put on trial. There are still so many counties that do this, and things similar to this to make their scores look good, and still have yet to be caught. And last but not least,(shameless plug) the best way to go is to Homeschool! You won’t have to worry about your child being bullied, you won’t have to worry about your child’s test scores being fake, and your child can graduate earlier than the regular school student.