首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Schools outside cities A)With its sandy beaches, charming ruins and occasionally blue waters, the Isle of Wight is a perfect spo
Schools outside cities A)With its sandy beaches, charming ruins and occasionally blue waters, the Isle of Wight is a perfect spo
admin
2016-04-26
33
问题
Schools outside cities
A)With its sandy beaches, charming ruins and occasionally blue waters, the Isle of Wight is a perfect spot off England’s southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some of the worst-performing schools in England. But it does; and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems.
B)Provisional figures show that last year just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than in any of London’s 32 boroughs(行政区), or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals(a representative of poverty)got five decent grades, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the island’s schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over.
C)Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a confused transition from the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wight’s real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city; it has some, but not many, poor children; and it is almost entirely white.
D)England’s worst schools used to be urban, poor and black—or sometimes Asian. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform considerably worse than whites nationally; now they do better.
E)Poor whites are now the country’s signal educational underachievers. Just 31% of white British children entitled to free school meals got five good GCSEs two years ago, fewer than poor children from any other ethnic group. They fare especially badly in suburbs, small towns and on the coast—places like the Isle of Wight.
F)Although the island contains pockets of poverty, it is hardly poverty-stricken: overall it comes 106th out of 326 local authorities in England on the government’s deprivation index. A bigger problem is a pervasive lack of faith in education as a means of self-improvement. Steph Boyd, who runs a new free school on the island, says some parents doubt whether the education system can help their children—not altogether surprising given the island’s failings. A few are more anxious for their offspring to go out and get jobs. And nearby career options are limited, points out Pat Goodhead, the headmistress of Christ the King College, the island’s best secondary school. The jobs pages of the County Press, the local newspaper, are filled with advertisements for care workers, barmen and cleaners. The advantage of deep poverty
G)Oddly, the Isle of Wight might do better if it were poorer. Truly poor parts of England receive large amounts of government cash. Schools in Tower Hamlets get £7,014 a year for each child, compared with £4,489 in the Isle of Wight. In addition, secondary schools get £900 for each poor child thanks to the "pupil premium" introduced by the coalition government. Poverty-stricken spots also benefit from energetic, idealistic young teachers. Teach First, a programme that sends top graduates into poor schools for at least two years, started in London in 2002. Then it expanded to other big cities such as Manchester. Last year it started sending teachers to south coast towns, but in tiny numbers. Of the 1,261 graduates who joined the programme last year, just 25 were placed on the entire south coast, compared with 553 in London.
H)Poor children do best in schools where they are either scarce or very numerous. Where they are few, teachers can give them plenty of attention. Where they are numerous, as in the East End of London, schools have no choice but to focus on them. Most ill-served are those who fall in between, in schools where they are insufficiently numerous to merit attention but too many to succeed alone. The Isle of Wight’s six state secondary schools are all stuck in the unhappy middle: between 9% and 17% of the children in them are entitled to free school meals.
I)One woman, who moved to the island from east London with her young daughter, suspects that the Isle of Wight’s lack of diversity is itself a problem. She may be right about that. Illiteracy among white British children can be easier to overlook than illiteracy among immigrants. Where schools are forced to help the latter, natives often benefit too, says Matthew Coffey of Ofsted, the schools inspectorate. That seems to have happened in Lincolnshire, which has seen a surge in Portuguese and east European immigration.
J)The government and Ofsted are increasingly worried about the gap in attainment between poor white Britons and the rest. The Department for Education reckons changing the way schools’ success is measured could help. The current emphasis on grades of C and above encourages teachers to focus on children on the edge of attaining that grade, at the expense of those who do really badly. Beginning in 2016 schools will have to track more closely the progress of each child, no matter what grades they are predicted to get. That should raise attentions of schools that have been able to coast along, ignoring the neediest, to give them more attention. But such reforms may not make much difference on the Isle of Wight. Schools there have struggled even against the current benchmark.
K)They might look to east London for inspiration. The dramatic improvement in Tower Hamlets resulted partly from efforts to change local culture. Schools ran programmes through mosques to tackle absenteeism(旷课). Parents were encouraged to become governors. But change will be harder outside the capital. Tower Hamlets benefits from nearby Canary Wharf, the capital’s second financial district, which supplies good jobs and middle-class advisers. The levers of change are less obvious where poor children are scattered thin. And there are fewer obvious institutions through which to try and improve the lot of the godless white majority.
Changing the way schools’ success is measured may of little help to improve the education of the Isle of Wight.
选项
答案
J
解析
根据题目的主语Changing…is measured可以定位到J段。该段第2句提到教育部认为改变衡量学校成功的方法可能帮助减少白人小孩与其余孩子间的学识差距。而该段最后一句用But一词表转折,表示这样的改革对怀特岛可能没有多大作用,其中的not make much difference on…与题目中的of little help同义,故J段为本题出处。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/RPuFFFFM
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Adegreefromacollegeoruniversityisoftenakeythatopensdoorsof【B1】______—doorstoabetterjobandabetterlife.With
A、Lackofmoisture.B、Exposuretoradiation.C、Lackofsleep.D、Misuseofmedicine.A女士说当你眨眼,闭眼睁眼的动作有助于滋润眼睛,而缺乏水分会导致眼睛疼痛。A可直接从对话
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteacompositiononthetopicChangesinPeople’sDailyExpenses.Yourshouldwr
Parents’Homework:FindPerfectTeachersforKidsA)TomiHalldidwhatshecouldtolobbyforthebestteachersforhertwochil
Teachingchildrentoreadwellfromthestartisthemostimportanttaskofelementaryschools.Butrelyingoneducatorstoappr
Abooklesslifeisa/an【C1】______life.Booksinfluencethedepthand【C2】______oflife.Theymeetthenaturaldesireforfreedo
AnimalsontheMoveA)Itlookedlikeascenefrom"Jaws"butwithoutthedramaticmusic.Ahugesharkwaslowlyswimmingthrough
A、Washingplates.B、Clearingtables.C、Shiningshoes.D、Sweepingthefloor.C细节题。短文中提到,6岁时thespeaker的第一份工作是给客人擦鞋(shiningshoes
A、Infamilylife.B、Ineducationdepartments.C、Insocialcontribution.D、Inbusinessworld.A细节题。短文提到,社会中男女角色发生了很多变化,而最重要的变化发生在
随机试题
气囊传感器总成检测项目有哪些?
Iknewamanwhowasaskedtobethenewdean(院长)oftheCollegeofBusinessofalargeuniversity.Whenhefirstarrived,hestu
寄生虫的生活史是指
A.眼内压升高B.直立性低血压C.性功能减退、乳房增大D.Q—T间期延长E.骨骼肌震颤奥昔布宁用于治疗急迫性尿失禁,其主要不良反应是
秦先生目前在某咨询公司任项目经理,月薪税前1.5万人民币,按15%缴纳三险一金,年底约有税前15万元的奖金收入。秦太太是幼儿园教师,工作稳定,每月收入税后3500元。二人目前均为32岁,2005年结婚,2005年6月首付15万元,采用等额本息方式贷款购买了
甲公司下属乙部门生产A产品,全年生产能量1200000机器工时,单位产品标准机器工时120小时,2018年实际产量11000件,实际耗用机器工时1331000小时。2018年标准成本资料如下:(1)直接材料标准消耗10千克/件,标准价格
按照法律规定,附条件的法律行为所附条件( )。
下列有关破产程序中的管理人的说法中,不正确的有()。
乘法口诀的掌握可以广泛迁移于各种情境中,这是一种垂直迁移。()
转基因食品的安全性被广泛质疑,国际社会对其尚存在极大争议。下列关于转基因食品说法正确的有:
最新回复
(
0
)