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Show 34 Schools Do Better On Testing The National Association of School Principals, which has just concluded a study of 34 American high schools whose students have constantly done better on scholastic aptitude tests than the national average, finds a simple explanation. ALL THESE high schools have stressed rigorous academic standards and traditional concentration on the educational basics-avoiding fads and modern theories in teaching, such as relaxed discipline in the class room, the teacher as a buddy rather than a disciplinarian, etc. This is the latest evidence fad theories in American education have had disastrous effects on students in the post-war decades. This is also reflected in the cold fact that the national average score of high school graduates on aptitude ap-titude tests has dropped from thirty to fifty points on both the verbal and math tests, in the last 14 years. THE LESSON to be learned, somewhat late to the chagrin of many parents and half-educated students, is that academic achievement is the proper goal of high schools, that it can be attained at-tained only in an atmosphere of order, with the necessary attention to the basics and discipline. |