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2014年12月第2套 仔细阅读 第2题
Various studies have shown that increased spending on education has not led to measurable improvements in learning. Between 1980 and 2008, staff and teachers at U.S. public schools grew roughly twice as fast as students. Yet students showed no additional learning in achievement tests.
Universities show similar trends of increased administration personnel and costs without greater learning, as documented in Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's recent book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.
A survey shows that 63% of employers say that recent college graduates don't have the skills they need to succeed and 25% of employers say that entry-level writing skills are lacking.
Some simplistically attribute the decline in our public education system to the drain of skilled students by private schools, but far more significant events were at work.
Public schools worked well until about the 1970s. In fact, until that time, public schools provided far better education than private ones. It was the underperforming students who were thrown out of public schools and went to private ones.
A prominent reason public schools did well was that many highly qualified women had few options for working outside the house other than being teachers or nurses. They accepted relatively low pay, difficult working conditions, and gave their very best.
Having such a large supply of talented women teachers meant that society could pay less for their services. Women's liberation opened up new professional opportunities for women, and, over time, some of the best left teaching as a career option, bringing about a gradual decline in the quality of schooling.
Also around that time, regulations, government, and unions came to dictate pay, prevent adjustments, and introduce bureaucratic (官僚的) standard for advancement. Large education bureaucracies and unions came to dominate the landscape, confusing activity with achievement. Bureaucrats regularly rewrite curriculums, talk nonsense about theories of education, and require ever more administrators. The end result has been that, after all the spending, students have worse math and reading skills than both their foreign peers and earlier generations spending far less on education — as all the accumulating evidence has now documented.
61. What do we learn from various studies on America's public education?
A.Achievement tests have failed to truly reflect the quality of teaching.
B.Public schools-lack the resources to compete with private schools.
C.Little improvement in education has resulted from increased spending.
D.The number of students has increased much faster than that of teachers.
62. How do some people explain the decline in public education?
A.Government investment does not meet schools' needs.
B.Skilled students are moving to private schools.
C.Qualified teachers are far from adequately paid.
D.Training of students' basic skills is neglected.
63. What was a significant contributor to the past glory of public schools?
A.Well-behaved students.
B.Efficient administration.
C.Talented women teachers.
D.Generous pay for teachers.
64. Why did some of the best women teachers leave teaching?
A.New career opportunities were made available to them by women's liberation.
B.Higher academic requirements made it difficult for them to stay in their jobs.
C.They were unhappy with the bureaucratic administration in their schools.
D.The heavy teaching loads left them little time and energy for family life.
65. What does the author think is one of the results of government involvement in education?
A.Increasing emphasis on theories of education.
B.Highly standardized teaching methods.
C.Students' improved academic performance.
D.An ever-growing number of administrators.
