2. 考研
  3. For America’s children the education system is often literally a lottery. That is the main message of a new documentary about Am

For America’s children the education system is often literally a lottery. That is the main message of a new documentary about Am

admin2019-08-01  78
问题     For America’s children the education system is often literally a lottery. That is the main message of a new documentary about America’s schools, "Waiting for ’superman’." It is intended to create a surge in public support for education reform at least as great as the clamour to do something about climate change generated by Al Gore’s eco-disaster flick.
    The timing could hardly be better. The "jobless recovery" is finally bringing home to Americans the fact that too many of those who go through its schools are incapable of earning a decent living in an increasingly competitive global economy. Despite its depressing enumeration of the failure of so many schools, its miserable ending, and the bleakness of its title, the movie also has a message of hope: there are good schools and teachers in America, whose methods could make its education system as good as any in the world.
    That truth, recognized by anyone who has spent even a few hours in, say, a KIPP charter school, is an inconvenient one to the teachers’ unions. For example, the film features efforts to reform the school system in Washington, DC, led by Adrian Fenry, the mayor, and Michelle Rhee, his combative schools chief, including a scene where Ms Rhee’s offer to double salaries for teachers in exchange for them giving up tenure and accepting performance-related wages is rejected by the unions. Right on cue for the launch of the film.
    The teachers’ unions have resolutely opposed efforts to pay good teachers more than mediocre ones, to fire the worst performers, and to shut down schools that consistently fail to deliver a decent education. This, coupled with underfunding in poor areas, has resulted in a shortage of good schools; so the few that are worth getting into are hugely oversubscribed. Ms Rhee upset the unions by refusing to accept all this, closing dozens of schools and firing 1,000 teachers.
    Perhaps the most important thing about "Waiting for superman" is that it is liberal, Al Gore-friendly types who are highlighting the fact the teacher’s unions are putting their worst-performing members before the interests of America’s children. Class war may be about to break our within the Democrats. Teachers’ union members are a vocal group within the party; but its rising stars—such as Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, who has just persuaded Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, to donate $100m to improve the city’s schools—are making school reform a priority.
    To be fair, the unions are not all bad. As Bill Gates has pointed out, they are taking part in an initiative funded by his foundation to develop new measures of teacher performance. Moreover, he notes, reform cannot succeed without the support of the majority of teachers. Even so, the fact is that the teachers’ unions are the primary obstacle to reform—which presents leading Democrats, and above all, Barack Obama, with a crucial test: will they be willing to confront a core part of their membership in the interests of America’s children? Mr Obama has gone further than many expected in pushing school reform. If he has any doubt as to which side he ought to be on, he need only ask that bellwether of public opinion, his old friend Oprah Winfrey. She recently invited Ms Rhee onto her show, where the audience gave her a standing ovation.
It is indicated in the last paragraph that______.
选项 A、Bill Gates favors teachers’ developing new measures of teacher performance
B、a core part of Democrat sets children’s interests aside
C、Obama’s efforts on education reform are disappointing
D、the author hopes Obama to pull out the big guns on education reform
答案D
解析 属信息推断题。选项A犯了以偏概全的逻辑错误，作者在第六段第二句只是表述比尔·盖茨肯定了教师工会在策划教师表现的评选方法上所做的努力，并没有对其所有行为表示肯定，故选项A错误。选项B犯了夸大其词的逻辑错误，在第六段的第四句作者只是说民主党内部可能由于儿童利益问题发生分歧，而选项B说民主党一部分人忽视儿童利益无疑是夸大其词，故选项B错误。第六段第五句说“奥巴马在推进学校改革上所做的努力超过了很多人的预期”，而选项C则说其努力令人失望，与原文不符，故选项C错误。作者在第六段第六、七句是这样表述的：若奥巴马不知道在教育改革方面上站到哪一边，他最好问问奥普拉·温弗瑞，后者在其节目中邀请到了致力于教育改革的拉伊，而拉伊获得了全场掌声，所以作者期望奥巴马在教育问题上能够大刀阔斧地进行改革，故选项D符合题意。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/D12Z777K
0

考研英语一

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)