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  3. Accountability for Education Fails I have an uncle who was for years a Chicago public school teacher. Passionate and articul

Accountability for Education Fails I have an uncle who was for years a Chicago public school teacher. Passionate and articul

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问题                     Accountability for Education Fails
    I have an uncle who was for years a Chicago public school teacher. Passionate and articulate about his subject, biology, Amie eared a great deal about whether the kids learned in his class.
    But here’s the disturbing thing he recalls about his career: In the years that his classes were filled with kids from poor, broken homes who didn’t eat or sleep with any regularity, he worried that he wasn’t nearly as effective as he wanted to be. He reached some of the kids, sometimes, with some material, but not enough to his liking, no matter what he did or how hard he tried.
    When he changed schools and suddenly was teaching kids from middle-class families who valued education, he instantly became a brilliant teacher. His students progressed at a fast clip, and everything he did seemed to work.
    What some school reformers seem to forget is that the kids’ circumstances outside school affect their class performance: how much they eat, how much they sleep, how many words they heard when they were young, how many books were made available to them, the abilities and the disabilities with which they were born, etc.
    What happens in the classroom is incredibly powerful, but it is not the only thing that matters.
    This is why it was so disheartening to hear President Obama wade into a debate about last week’s firing of all of the educators at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.
    The firings by the Central Falls school trustees made big headlines, not because reconstituting a school is new, but perhaps because it is the only school in the state’s poorest and smallest city, and because it was not reported as being the consequence of years of calculated efforts to fix the school (even if it was).
    Education Secretary Arne Duncan immediately applauded the move, saying the committee members were "showing courage and doing the right thing for kids". And today, Obama felt the need to jump in, saying in a speech: "So if a school is struggling, we have to work with the principal and the teachers to find a solution. We’ve got to give them a chance to make meaningful improvements. But if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show signs of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability."
    "And that’s what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11 th graders passed state math tests—7 percent. When a school board wasn’t able to deliver change by other means, they voted to lay off the faculty and the staff. As my Education Secretary Arne Duncan, says, "our kids get only one chance at an education, and we need to get it right."
    One thing that Obama got right: the school board wasn’t able to deliver change, but, unfortunately, the school board didn’t fire itself. It fired all the administrators and teachers, as if they were the only things responsible for student failure.
    I wish someone would tell Obama the truth about school restructuring.
According to the author, why did the firings in the Central Falls school arouse so much attention?
选项 A、Because the school has never tried to enhance its situation.
B、Because the school was located in a poor area.
C、Because Obama attended a debate on the firings.
D、Because the school would not be shut down.
答案B
解析 事实细节题。由题干关键词aroused so much attention定位到第八段。由该段第三句可知，作者认为新闻之所以成为头条是因为这是周内最小最穷的城市里唯一一所学校，故[B]为正确选项。该段最后一句提到，媒体并没有报道学校已经年复一年地付出努力、希望扭转学校的劣况，故[A]排除；第七段表明，奥巴马是因为这件事引起了轩然大波才参与辩论，并不是因为他参与了辩论事件才受关注，故排除[C]；第八段第一句说这则新闻成为头条并不是因为重新构建一个学校是个新鲜的事情，故排除[D]。
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