We don't achieve with ACHIEVE3000

This year, the freshman class has endured countless hours staring mindlessly into their computer screens. We have skimmed through mundane articles about a variety of topics and quickly answered questions about what we have read. The prime objective is that we score above 75 per cent on the short quizzes that follow the article, so we can move on with our lives. For the freshmen, these activities seem unnecessarily time-consuming.

Achieve3000 is an online education program designed to prepare students for standardized tests. The curriculum is designed to help all students reach the same level of education set by the Common Core standards. Included in an Achieve3000 lesson is an article, questions relating to the article, and an optional thought question. Each quarter, the freshman class is required to complete a minimum number of articles, and for many classes the questions have to be answered with a minimum percent of accuracy.

At LM, we strive to be above average with our academics. We have a four-day cycle, and we meet in English class three times out of those four days for fifty-five minutes. Since the beginning of this year in my English class, we have spent one out of every three classes working on completing the achieve articles. I asked my English teacher, Bill Quinn, why it was necessary for us to do these articles. He responded that, the English department implemented this mandatory change in curriculum to prepare us for the tenth grade literature Keystone exams.

All of the time spent preparing for these standardized tests could be used in much better ways. Without these exercises, we would be able to read more books and other literature. This would help improve our vocabulary just as much, if not more, than reading any of these articles. Reading more in English would lead to more intellectual discussions, which are not only interesting but also educational. We would also have more time to write. Although Achieve3000 includes free-response writing questions, it does not offer the constructive critique and feedback from classmates and teachers that could benefit a developing writer. If less time was spent focusing on preparing for standardized tests, we could live up to the LM tradition of surpassing the standards of the education system and focus our time on more reading and writing.

Along with lost class time, completing the Achieve3000 articles has other downsides. How is it beneficial when the articles are completely unrelated to the rest of the English curriculum? Many of them are uninteresting to students, so they tend to spend less time reading the articles and focus more on answering the questions. Reading is an important skill, but the website makes it fairly simple to bypass reading the article and move straight to the questions.

Shuli Weinstein ’18 feels that “the articles do not help us expand our knowledge in English class, and it would be more beneficial to read anything that relates more to what we are currently learning.” Other students have told me that they have younger siblings in middle school who are required to complete the same articles we read. Not gaining any meaningful knowledge from these uninteresting articles is unfortunate considering we devote such a large amount of class time to them.

We are now three quarters into the school year, and soon it will be time to evaluate what we have learned throughout the course of the year. The mandatory obligation to complete these Achieve3000 articles has made the ninth grade class feel as though they have actually achieved less and less in their English education. Instead of escalating our educational career to more advanced levels, the constant use of this website has in fact lowered the intellectual level to focus on the ideals set by the Common Core. At LM, we shouldn’t strive to be just what is expected from some arbitrary guideline. We should strive to exceed the expected level, and Achieve3000 appears to be a barrier holding our school back. Hopefully, the incoming freshman class next year will not have to face the same requirements with this website, and that the LM community can continue to advance education.

#opinion