I wrote my paper on the pros and cons of standardized testing. Here are the sources that I used:

Fletcher, D. (2009). Brief History Standardized Testing. Time U.S. Web. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1947019,00.html

Kohn, A. (2000). Standardized Testing and Its Victims. Education Week. http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm

Kohn, A. (2000). The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools. Port Chester, N.Y.: Dude Pub. Pp. 1-23.

Marlaire, C. L. & Maynard, D. W. (1990). Standardized Testing as an Interactional Phenomenon. Sociology of Education. 63(2). Pp. 83-101.

Menken, K. (2008). English Learners Left Behind: Standardized Testing as Language Policy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Pp. 3-148.

Phelps, R. P. (2005). Defending Standardized Testing. Lawrence Eribaum Associates, Inc.
Pp. 1-54.

Zwick, R. (2004). Rethinking the SAT: The Future of Standardized Testing in University Admissions. Issues in Science and Technology. Pp. 1-367.

No Child Left Behind. (2004). Education Week. http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/no-child-left-behind/

I found this article absolutely shocking and extremely unethical. I had no idea students go to such extremes to cheat. In no way do I support students paying someone to write their papers. Students are consciously taking someone else's work and calling it their own. I cannot believe that over 60% of undergraduates have admitted to some form of cheating. I believe that everyone should know the basics of writing, whether they will use it in their future profession or not. The writing of the students who use the service is absolutely horrendous, and it is crazy to believe that these students, who cannot even formulate a simple sentence, are graduating. This article shows how lazy people are and how far they will go just to receive an A or to have a paper written for them.

Suspension rates among African American and Latino students are drastically higher than suspension rates among white students. According to the study from the article, "African-American students are 3-1/2 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. And 70 percent of students arrested or referred to law enforcement for disciplinary infractions are black or Latino." Also, academic opportunities for African American and Latino students are astonishingly lower than opportunities for white students. "Among high schools that serve predominately Latino and African-American students, just 29 percent offer a calculus class and only 40 percent offer physics." It is sad that racial disparity in both discipline and academic opportunity still exist. The Civil Rights Data Collection calls attention to districts that support racial inequality in hopes for a positive change.

The term "special needs" is a large umbrella term that covers a vast classification of children with disabilities. The children in special needs programs may be greatly different from one another. One child may only have a mild hearing problem, while another may have profound autism. Parents are worried that all children with disabilities are given the same attention, whereas some may need much more than others. The committee of Disability Equality in Education is working towards effectively integrating children with special needs into mainstream classrooms. According to Richard Reiser, in order to accomplish effective integration "you need inclusions, not placements, and for that you need more resources, more training and a mandatory code of admissions." Although some parents say that inclusion does not work, I believe that with the proper resources inclusion can be effective. I agree with the article that "if children with special needs mix with others, it helps to make people in society more accepting of difference."

This study compared the academic performance of 57 countries. The United States performed average. According to the study, "On average 16 other industrialized countries scored above the United States in science, and 23 scored above us in math." Researchers believe that the 'average' performance of the United States is due to the fact that the United States has a large gap between high and low performing students. Finland, who performed the best in the study, has the smallest gap between high and low performing students. I was stunned as to how different the American educational system is from the Finnish educational system. Some of the aspects of the Finnish educational system that surprised me were that Finnish schools do not have classes for gifted students and that children do not start school until age 7. I find it interesting that Finnish teachers must acquire a master's degree and that becoming a teacher in Finland is very competitive. I think that teachers are highly overlooked in the United States. In contrast, "Just 10% of Finnish college graduates are accepted into the teacher training program; as a result, teaching is a high-status profession. I feel that if teachers were looked more highly upon in the United States we would have a stronger educational system. The fact that college is free in Finland probably plays a large role in the success of their students. If more under-privileged American students were able to obtain a free college education the performance of our educational system would drastically increase.