How useful are the views of public school students about their teachers?

游客2023-07-10  33

问题     How useful are the views of public school students about their teachers?
    Quite useful, according to preliminary results released on Friday from a research project that is intended to find new ways of distinguishing good teachers from bad.
    Teachers whose students described them as skillful at maintaining classroom order, at focusing their instruction and at helping their charges learn from their mistakes are often the same teachers whose students learn the most in the course of a year, as measured by gains on standardized test scores, according to a progress report on the research.
    Financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the two-year project involves scores of social scientists and some 3,000 teachers and their students in districts such as New York and Pittsburgh.
    Statisticians began the effort last year by ranking all the teachers using a statistical method known as value-added modeling, which calculates how much each teacher has helped students learn based on changes in test scores from year to year.
    Thousands of students have filled out confidential questionnaires(秘密调查问卷)about the learning environment that their teachers create. After comparing the students’ ratings with teachers’ value-added scores, researchers have concluded that there is quite a bit of agreement.
    Classrooms where a majority of students said they agreed with the statement, "Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time," tended to be led by teachers with high value-added scores, the report said.
    The same was true for teachers whose students agreed with the statement, "In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes."
    Few of the nation’s 15,000 public school districts systematically question students about their classroom experiences, in contrast to American colleges, many of which collect annual student evaluations to improve instruction, Dr. Ferguson said.
    Until recently, teacher evaluations were little more than a formality(形式)in most school systems, with the vast majority of instructors getting top ratings, often based on a principal’s superficial impressions.
    But now some 20 states are overhauling their evaluation systems, and many policymakers have been asking the Gates Foundation for suggestions on what measures of teacher effectiveness to use, said Vicki L. Phillips, a director of education at the foundation.
    One notable early finding, Ms. Phillips said, is that teachers who incessantly(不停地)drill their students to prepare for standardized tests tend to have lower value-added learning gains than those who simply work their way methodically through the key concepts of literacy and mathematics. [br] It can be inferred from the context that "overhauling"(Line 1, Para. 11)has the closest meaning to______.

选项 A、cleaning thoroughly
B、catching up with
C、changing to improve
D、stopping using

答案 C

解析 根据题干中的overhauling将本题出处定位于倒数第2段。该段提到,但是目前大约有20个州正在overhauling教学评估制度。段首的But表明,本段意思与上段意思之间有转折,而上段主要说明教师评估制度存在的问题,即只是个摆设,再结合该段后面提到的很多参与其中的决策者向盖茨基金会咨询应该使用哪种方式来评估教师的绩效可知,此处的overhauling应该有改革的含义,故答案为C)。
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