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  3. At the King Solomon Academy in London, children from the nearby tower blocks are settling into a new school year. Girls in hijab

At the King Solomon Academy in London, children from the nearby tower blocks are settling into a new school year. Girls in hijab

admin2021-02-21  98
问题    At the King Solomon Academy in London, children from the nearby tower blocks are settling into a new school year. Girls in hijabs mingle with Afro-Caribbean boys in over-sized new sport jackets. The proportion of pupils receiving free school meals because their parents are poor is three times the national average. Yet the academy, which is run by ARK, a charity, is ranked as "outstanding" by the schools inspector and has been generously praised by Anthony Seldon, headmaster of a leading private school.
   Max Haimendorf, its young head, has adopted many ideas from American charter schools. His mission is to get as many children as possible to top universities. "It’s what changes lives," he says. Notice-boards are filled with information introducing children from primary level upwards to that aspiration.
   Ambitious outfits like this delight Michael Gove, the education secretary. He has expanded the academies programme which aims to give schools more control over their management and curriculum (though not their admissions policies) as well as discretion to vary teachers’ pay. Over half of state secondary schools are now academies. The coalition is also pushing free schools, created by parents and other groups dissatisfied with the local offerings. So far 79 free schools have opened, with another 100 in the pipeline.
   The education secretary’s ability to send strong reformist signals, so useful in encouraging the growth of academies, can cause a mess. A row over the sudden downward revision of English GSCE grades suggest that the qualifications regulator responded to pressure to make exams tougher—a favourite theme of Mr Gove—without giving due warning of the shift in grade boundaries or how to address them.
   Another problem is what to do if an academy or free school under-performs (in America, charter schools close every year). Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of OFSTED, the schools inspectorate, hopes for power to inspect academy chains as well as the local authorities who run the country’s remaining comprehensive schools. OFSTED only has the right to inspect individual schools: a hangover from the previous system. One remedy might lie in the creation of powerful regional school commissioners, who could demand changes, send in improvement teams when things go wrong and generally strive to outdo one another. A flaw in both Labour and Conservative school-reform efforts is that there is little drive for improvements to spread round the country. A keener sense of regional responsibility might help.
   Ultimately, though, no amount of structural change, interventions or inspections counts for as much as good teaching. Lord Adonis, a former Labour minister who set up the academies programme, says it is "simply absurd" that top universities have no stake in teacher-training, a job left too long, he says, to "disappoint educational sociologists". The best schools could be given more autonomy and incentives to help train teachers, ensuring that newcomers learn from the best of their profession, not the middling performers. Rewards need sharpening, just as poor performers should be edged out more quickly. The coalition, which has supported "golden hellos" for some graduates training as teachers, could do more to attract top maths and science performers.
   [A] has enlarged the academies programme to give more authority to schools.
   [B] feels dissatisfied with top universities’ neglect of teacher-training.
   [C] speaks highly of the King Solomon Academy managed by ARK.
   [D] has the right to inspect the local organizations who run comprehensive schools.
   [E] commits himself to helping more kids enter top universities.
   [F] demands more authority for the inspection on academy chains.
   [G] learns from many American and British charter schools.
Michael Gove
选项
答案A
解析 Michael Cove出现在第三段。该段前两句说到Michael Gove拓展了“学院计划”，其目的是使校方在学校管理、课程安排、教师工资方面拥有更多的自主权。A中的enlarged和authority分别对应文中的expanded和control，而the academies programme是原词复现，故确定A为本题的正确答案。
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