Back to Basics: Test Scores Don't Lie response

Never in my life have I experienced the academic environment that Diane Ravitch describes in her essay. She talks about schools where students felt like it was bad to achieve straight As because they would be perceived as a 'nerd' or 'brain', where the cool thing was to do poorly in school. My high school and middle school (same place) was small and competitive. The teachers were always pushing the students to to better as well as the other students. Everyone understood that good grades could help lead to a better future, so a person was not considered 'uncool' just because they did well academically. In college it is sort of the same. The teachers expect the students to to well but the academic and social aspects of life are separated further than they were in high school. All of my friends here want to do the best so when we do well in a class it is thought of as a good thing rather than uncool.

response to "How does starting the research process with a question change the process itself?"

When there is no research question at the beginning of research the results tend to be vague, there's no focus, and once the writing begins the paper tends to lack focus too. By starting the process with a definite, specific question the researcher knows what exact information they need to look at within their topic; instead of having piles and piles of information to sort through, they might only have two. The question adds focus to the process and leads to a paper that is much easier to write.