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Answer & Explanation:Course Project-First DraftThe purpose of the first draft is to begin communicating your topic and to establish its relevance to a reader. The first draft will present an introduction (two to three paragraphs) and one section (two to three paragraphs) of the body of the paper. The first draft should include at least three of the sources you presented in your Annotated Bibliography. If you have made changes to your list of references, cite each new reference carefully both in the text and on the reference page. The length of the first draft is three to four pages of text, not including the title and References pages. The assignment includes a prewriting activity to plan the sections of the project, which is included on the “Week 5 First Draft Directions and Document Format” file, located in the Supplemental Materials folder in Doc Sharing. First Draft Direction and Document FormatA sample assignmentThe assignment grading rubricAnnotated BibliographyWk4 Annotated Bibliography.docxFirst Draft DirectionsWeek_5_First_Draft_Directions_and_Document_Format (Prewriting).docxFirst Draft SampleWeek_5_First_Draft_Sample_11.14_ENGL_135.docx
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Running head: STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
Standardized Tests Sections I and II
Sammy North
DeVry University
1
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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Standardized Tests Sections I and II
Brittany, an honors student in Atlanta, Georgia, had worked hard her entire academic
career to celebrate what would be her proudest moment in high school: commencement. She
wanted to walk across the stage to the flash of cameras and the smiles of her family just like her
classmates, and then journey off to a college in South Carolina where she had already been
accepted. So she gathered her proud family members from Chicago and Washington, D.C., to
come to share in her joy. Brittany watched as her classmates put on their caps and gowns and
walked across the stage to receive their diplomas. But she did not, and instead waited all during
the day to get a last-minute waiver signed. She continued to wait through the night, but it never
came. She began to realize that if she graduated, it would not be quick or easy. Her problem was
that she had not passed one of four subject areas in the state’s graduation test, which students
must pass to earn a regular diploma. She is not alone. Thousands of students, such as Brittany,
every year do not make it across the stage at graduation due to failing these state tests. And many
of them, such as Brittany, were honors students who had fulfilled all the other requirements of
graduation except this one (Torres, 2010).
Stories such as this one are far too common and should not happen. We have the power to
change the status quo, so that no student should have to follow the same path as Brittany. This
problem can be solved, though like Brittany’s case, it will be neither quick nor easy.
Everyone is affected by the strength of our educational system, from the students
themselves and their ability to succeed in college and in the workplace, to the employers who
hire them—and everyone in between. Every taxpayer is a stakeholder in education, because these
tests are paid for by tax dollars, and the return on investment in education is not where it should
be. Standardized tests should be abolished and replaced with end-of-year subject tests because
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
3
they will save time and money, lead to increased mastery of core subjects, and diminish dropout
rates.
This problem resulted on the one hand from national concern with global competition.
When Sputnik rose into the sky in 1957 and Americans were concerned that the Russians were
outgunning us in the Space Race, millions of dollars were poured into math and science
programs to bolster teaching and resultant learning in these subjects. The 1965 Elementary and
Secondary Education Act helped to fund these efforts. Confidence in our educational system was
renewed when Americans set foot on the moon in 1969, but by 1983, it had eroded. Its quality so
alarmed the government that its 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, warned that a “rising tide of
mediocrity” would undermine this country’s place in the competitive 20th century (as cited in
Zhao, 2006, p. 28). By 2001, the Bush administration authorized the No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) Act, which began in 2002 and runs parallel in thinking and intent to the Race to the Top
(RTT) initiative, started under the Obama administration in 2009. NCLB mandated high-stakes
tests for all states, and imposed a carrots-and-sticks strategy of rewards and punishments if test
scores were not consistently high. The thinking is that students and teachers will work and learn
more if there are serious rewards or punishments; teachers get financial rewards and schools are
lauded by the media if they do well, but teachers face termination, schools face closures, and
students are retained or not allowed to graduate if they do poorly (Nichols, Glass, & Berliner,
2012). Furthermore, it is thought that tests help produce a world-class education by encouraging
students to reach their full potential, improving our collective productivity, and reestablishing
our competitiveness on a global scale (Madaus & Russell, 2010).
Another cause of the problem is that these tests are poorly designed and don’t measure
what they should. The NCLB legislation from the Bush administration promised that all children
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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would be held to the same high standards in core subjects such as math and reading, and school
districts would get funding from the government to force children to take these tests; if schools
did poorly, they would be slapped with improvement plans and further sanctions if they failed to
show annual progress. Schools should be held accountable to—and raise expectations and
standards for—all students, and the resultant improvement would benefit everyone. So it’s
logical to conclude that these tests, after being in place since 2002, would improve math and
reading test scores, certainly allowing fewer students into remedial college courses. If these tests
improved complex skills in math and reading, students would not have to take remediation
courses in college at the same rates, but this is not the case, according to Ravitch (2011):
improved scores on standardized tests do not translate into the kind of proficiency needed even
for first-year college courses. Students are still taking remedial college courses in large numbers
and at staggering costs to states that must shoulder the burden. Standardized tests will continue to
decrease the class time spent on history and science and increase the number of skilled testtakers who aren’t any better at math and reading, despite No Child Behind legislation and its
promise of improvement through standardized tests (Ravitch, 2011).
One effect is a vicious cycle that is counterproductive to the mission of NCLB and RTT:
schools compete for funding based on students’ scores, and those with low-scoring students are
not just penalized; they don’t receive the needed funding, which in turn leads teachers to have
fewer resources left to teach with. So their students are less likely to score well. These initiatives
are aimed at improvement through high standards, great expectations, and accountability, yet real
improvement has not been borne out in the literature. On the contrary, students’ motivation and
teachers’ instructional methods have been negatively affected by these tests, with negative
connections found between these tests and student achievement and graduation rates (Nichols,
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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Glass, & Berliner, 2012). The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) has shown
little improvement in the years under NCLB (Ravitch, 2011). Nichols, Glass, and Berliner’s
(2012) study about the NAEP test scores in reading and math pre- and post-NCLB concluded
that students were making greater gains in math before NCLB legislation than after it; reading
achievement has been unchanged pre- and post-NCLB. Scores from the two college entrance
exams, the SAT and ACT, actually declined from 2006 to 2010 (as cited in Onosko, 2011), so
skills needed to enter higher education have not improved despite standardized testing programs.
Our poor showing compared to other developed nations continues unabated. The Program for
International Student Achievement (PISA) compares 15-year-olds from 65 countries: we rated
10th in reading, 18th in math and 13th in science, with schools that enjoy autonomy regarding
assessment scoring higher (as cited in Mathis, 2011). Of course, many factors account for
differences in scores between nations (socioeconomic differences, language barriers, etc.), but
this is still no excuse.
Another effect is the performance gap regarding socioeconomic factors. One premise of
NCLB legislation was that our educational system was at fault for the low achievement levels of
students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. If teachers and administrators at schools in poor
neighborhoods did a better job, then students from these areas would excel and not become “left
behind” their more advantaged peers. This has yet to occur to the extent the NCLB wished for.
The narrowing of the achievement gap between higher and lower income groups has not
occurred according to some studies (as cited in Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2012) or is
narrowing but at a very slow rate (Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2012). Berliner (2010) argues that
inadequate healthcare, insufficient nutrition, lead poisoning, air pollution, domestic violence,
and crime are outside factors among poor children that have more to do with school
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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achievement than teachers or administrators. Yet these factors are not accounted for in the
current system of standardized testing, and students and schools are being left further behind.
Schools with at-risk students become institutions for test takers. Stress caused by standardized
testing results in less time for children to play, sleep, and interact with their parents (as cited in
Clemmitt, 2007), so everyday social interaction and family cohesiveness are threatened by this
kind of testing. But it gets worse: very often, what happens in the classroom is directly aligned
to state tests.
Students and teachers have learned that their jobs and futures are tied to how well they do
on these tests, so the tests are taken very seriously. This effect, teaching to the test, is pervasive;
teachers essentially teach only what is tested, often to the exclusion of anything else (Hillocks,
2002; McNeil & Valenzuela, 2001). Many subjects such as history or the arts are deemphasized; more importantly, skills that are critical to students’ success in college—research
skills and lab experiments—are not taught. So the more that tests emphasize test taking, the less
they emphasize skills necessary for college, and the more they leave students unprepared for the
rigor and challenge of college. In many schools, test preparation is the curriculum (Menken,
2006) and also what is valued in its content. For example, in writing, the tests influence what is
valued in the instruction of writing and what is encouraged in student thinking, a kind of
formulaic writing or “organized blether” (Hillocks, 2002, p. 80). Tests are teaching students
very negative ideas about writing: one-hour timed writing on the five-paragraph theme forces
students to make “safe” choices since drafting and revising are not practiced. Writing tests don’t
require students to examine their work for consistency, relevance, or impact; it promotes a way
of thinking that removes the necessity of critical thought (Hillocks, 2002). Thus many
classroom hours are spent practicing writing that does not promote the kind of critical literacy
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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valued in higher education or the workplace. The tests drain students of higher-order thinking
skills, and are not teaching them to become “creative, critical and curious learners” (as cited in
Koch, 2000, “Current Situation,” para. 4).
One more by-product of this testing craze is that students feel disenfranchised from
school and simply drop out. Standardized tests have not improved or, according to recent
studies, have even exacerbated the high school dropout rate (as cited in Nichols, Glass, &
Berliner, 2012). High school dropouts are far more likely to be unemployed compared to
college graduates, and are much more likely to end up incarcerated and to get public assistance
compared to their counterparts who graduated from high school (as cited in National Dropout
Prevention Center/Network, 2010). So the indirect costs just of dropouts, let alone public
assistance and correctional facilities, are overwhelming our government at a time when it can
least afford it. The indirect effects of funding standardized testing are staggering, considering
that these government programs are funded through taxpayer dollars. Race to the Top’s bill has
been tagged at $4.35 billion (as cited in Onosko, 2011), not to mention the huge investments in
time and energy that all stakeholders must invest in competing for this money. A solution is not
only desirable; it’s unconscionable not to consider.
Figure 1: No Child Left Behind Act Being Signed into Law, 2002
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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Figure 1: President George W. Bush is flanked by members of Congress and students
when he signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2002. Source: Save Education (and GOP
Consistency): Dump No Child Left Behind (2010).
As shown in Figure 1, NCLB was signed into law in 2002, and the image above reflects
the good intentions that this initiative engendered: the president and smiling members of
Congress, including Edward M. Kennedy, a Democrat, and John Boehner, a Republican, along
with children in front of the American flag. Despite their best intentions, these tests have not
fulfilled the promise of raising the quality of education in our schools, and have instead left a
trail of broken promises, high school dropouts, and no substantial returns on investment. As a
result of standardized tests, our children have been left behind and are falling to the bottom of the
heap!
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
9
References
Adelman, C. (1999). Answers in the tool box: Academic intensity, attendance patterns, and
bachelor’s degree attainment. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Educational Research and Improvement.
Albertson, K., & Marwitz, M. (2001). The silent scream: Students negotiating timed writing
assessment. Teaching English in a Two Year College, 29(2), 144–153.
Berliner, D. C. (2010). Are teachers responsible for low achievement by poor students?
Education Digest, 75(7), 4. Retrieved from http://www.eddigest.com/
Bridgeland, J., DiIulio, J., & Morison, K. (2006). The silent epidemic: Perspectives of high
school dropouts. Retrieved from http://www.civicenterprises.net/pdfs/thesilentepidemic306.pdf
Clemmitt, M. (2007, July 13). Students under stress. CQ Researcher, 17, 577-600. Retrieved
from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Hillocks, G. (2002). The testing trap: How state writing assessments control learning. New
York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Jost, K. (2010, April 16). Revising no child left behind. CQ Researcher, 20, 337–360. Retrieved
from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Koch, K. (2000, September 22). Cheating in schools. CQ Researcher, 10, 745–768. Retrieved
from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Madaus, G., & Russell, M. (2010). Paradoxes of high-stakes testing. Journal of Education,
190(1/2), 21–30. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/journalofeducation/
Mathis, W. J. (2011). International test scores, educational policy, and the American dream.
Encounter, 24(1), 31–33. Retrieved from https://great-ideas.org/enc.htm
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
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McNeil, L., & Valenzuela, A. (2001). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing in
Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. In M. Kornhaber & G. Orfield (Eds.), Raising
standards or raising barriers? Inequality and high stakes testing in public education
(pp.127–150). New York, NY: Century Foundation.
Menken, K. (2006, Summer). Teaching to the test: How No Child Left Behind impacts language
policy, curriculum, and instruction for English language learners. Bilingual Research
Journal 30(2), 521–546.
National Dropout Prevention Center/ Network. (2010). Model programs. Retrieved from
http://www.dropoutprevention.org/modelprograms
Nichols, S. L., Glass, G. V., & Berliner, D.C. (2012). High-stakes testing and student
achievement: Updated analyses with NAEP data. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 20
(20). Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1048
Onosko, J. (2011). Race to the Top leaves children and future citizens behind. Democracy &
Education, 19(2), 1–11. Retrieved from http://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/
Ravitch, D. (2011). Dictating to the schools: A look at the effect of the Bush and Obama
administration on schools. Education Digest, 76(8), 4-9. Retrieved from

Peptides: The Connection to Mushrooms, THCa, Delta 9 & Gold IRAs

Save Education (and GOP Consistency): Dump No Child Left Behind (2010). Retrieved from
http://madvilletimes.com/
Torres, K. (2010, May 27). Atlanta honors student misses graduation as she awaits test waiver.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved from http://www.ajc.com
STANDARDIZED TESTS SECTIONS I AND II
Truell, A., & Woosley, S. (2008). Admission criteria and other variables as predictors of
business student graduation. College Student Journal, 42(2), 348–356. Retrieved from
http://projectinnovation.com/College_Student_Journal.html
Zhao, Y. (2006). Are we fixing the wrong things? Educational Leadership, 63(8), 28–31.
Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership.aspx
11
Running head: GAY MARRIAGE
1
Unequal rights in marriage: Gay Marriage
Moishea Moore
DeVry University
GAY MARRIAGE
2
Gay Marriage
Introduction
Gay marriage is a marriage between two individuals of the same sex either in a religious
or civil ceremony. These kinds of marriages were rare in most societies many people considering
them as a taboo. In the late twentieth century, some religious institutions started conducting these
marriages without legal recognition. There has been a long battle over these marriages, however,
currently; many countries including the United States are legalizing them by striking down
marriage bans. The US Supreme Court finally decided to grant licenses to gay couples.
Currently, more than 30 states are offering marriage license and for the other remaining ones, it
is unclear how long they will take to comply with the court’s ruling. The biggest dilemma in gay
marriage is how the society will finally come to comply with it. Many people are still adamant
even though the Supreme Court has ruled in its favor. How the society views gay individuals is
also another issue. The following scholarly articles are going to discuss issues that surround gay
marriage legalization and acceptance by the society.
Baunach, D. M. (2011). Decomposing Trends in Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage, 1988–2006*.
Social Science Quarterly, 92(2), 346-363.
The author of this article examined the trends in people’s attitudes towards gay marriage
by analyzing data from the General Social Survey. He employed the use of decomposition
techniques to explain the changing attitudes of people toward gay marriages in 1988 to 2006. His
findings indicated that as time progressed, people’s attitudes were significantly liberalized. He
concluded by indicating that the several movements and pressure groups that support gayism
may have changed people’s perception throughout the years.
GAY MARRIAGE
Assessment: This book can be used to evaluate future trends and, therefore, approximate
the acceptability of gay marriages in the coming years. It can also be used to identify specific
factors that influence people’s acceptability and therefore use them to influence masses.
Herek, G. M. (2006). Legal recognition of same-sex relationships in the United States: a social
science perspective. American Psychologist, 61(6), 607.
The author of this article focused on the legal recognition of gay marriages in the US.
Some people argue that these marriages do not provide a good basis for the development of
children. The author therefore presents relevant social science research and behavioral research
that will be used to assess the validity of this question. Data collected that heterosexual and
same-sex marriages do not differ in their psychosocial dimension. This indicates that the
orientation of a parent does not affect the way they will raise their kids. Moreover, the data
indicate that marriage bestows considerable social, psychological and health benefits. Children
from gay couples are therefore likely to benefit more when their families are legalized.
Assessment: The infor …
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