Chapter 9 Pretest

Influential teacher organizations are cautiously supportive of a merit pay plan. Provided that certain conditions are met, they would be more likely to support it. Which of the following is one of those conditions?

Local teachers should be involved in planning

Identify an accurate statement about open enrollment

Students become eligible to enroll in any public school with available space

Which statement is true regarding voucher programs?

Voucher programs have been less effective than expected and their impact sounds better in theory than it is in fact

Value added refers to:

assessing and rewarding the value a teacher adds to a student's education

For-profit schools are a good idea because they will:

offer focused programs and investor oversight will lead to academic success

Silver Springs middle school was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a green ribbon school. The school earned this distinction for:

promoting environmental and sustainable education, offering healthier environments with clean air and water, and promoting outdoor activities

Alexis is a teacher who feels strongly about the importance of preparing students to live in a democracy. She tries her best to teach civic learning to students, at par with other academic subjects. Alexis's ideas conform with those of:

social democratic reconstructionists

Some studies on school size have determined that:

students in smaller schools are more likely to pass their courses, and to attend college

When students, parents, and teachers were asked to rate goals of schooling in a study by John Goodlad:

vocational, personal, academic, social, and civic goals were all rated "very important."

Which statement would most likely be made by a critic of schools' efforts to transmit culture?

"When schools transmit culture, they tend to transmit a narrow perspective about other cultures and chauvinistic feeling of cultural superiority."

Which of the following statements best reflects the beliefs of James Coleman?

"When we carefully analyze private schools, we can clearly see that they do a better job than public schools. Perhaps private schools are the way to fix education."

The current reform efforts in education can be traced back to:

A Nation at Risk

Imagine a school where teachers do not have daily contact with one another and act independently, the school administration does not give due importance to effective communication with the students' families about the school's goals and expectations. They are vague about the goals of the school and focus on maintaining the status quo. This represents a failure of which element of the "five-factor theory of effective schools"?

A clear school mission

Which of the following is a characteristic of charter schools?

Charter schools can be closed down if they do not meet expectations

One of the founders of the school reform movement, the economist, who argued that competition creates better schools and weak local public schools existed because neighborhood families were a "trapped" clientele was:

Milton Friedman

Which of these is an accurate feature of virtual schools?

They provide learning over long distances by means of television, the internet, and other technologies

In the context of the report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, titled The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, identify an accurate statement.

The nation's gross domestic product would be $1.3 to $2.3 trillion higher if achievement gaps did not exist

Elaine was homeschooled for most of her life before heading to college at a state university. Based on what is known of homeschooled students in college, we can conclude that Elaine is most likely to:

be well-thought-of by many of her professors because professors describe homeschooled students as more self-directed and willing to take risks

Jean and Stephen were concerned about the quality of education that their son, Galen, was receiving in the neighborhood school. They believed it would not be sufficient to impart religious and moral values to their son. Hence, they chose to homeschool Galen for the rest of his educational career. This religion-based motivation on the part of Galen's parents to homeschool him is a characteristic of:

ideologues

Schools that offer high-quality programs for talented students and have been used as a method of voluntary racial desegregation are known as:

magnet schools

As an economic reconstructionist, Paulo Freire claimed that:

schools often miseducate and oppress the poor

Full-service schools:

remain open most of the day and 11 months a year

Economic reconstructionists believe that:

schools are tools of oppression

According to a survey, by the nonprofit Education Sector, most teachers:

support educational reform and change

At a recent school board meeting, a group of parents spoke out on the issue of the poor quality of the district's schools. They demanded the formation of charter schools that emphasized a rigorous, traditional curriculum and teacher-centered classrooms. These parents most closely resemble:

zealots