Passage Four: Questions are based on the following passage.
Various studies have shown that increased spending on education has not led to measurable improvements in learning. Between 1980 and 2008, staff and teachers at U.S. public schools grew roughly twice as fast as students. Yet students showed no additional learning in achievement tests.
Universities show similar trends of increased administration personnel and costs without greater learning, as documented in Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s recent book Academically Adrift Limited Learning on College Campuses.
A survey shows that 63% of employers say that recent college graduates don’t have the skills they need to succeed and 25% of employers say that entry-level writing skills are lacking.
Some simplistically attribute the decline in our public education system to the drain of the skilled students by private schools, but far more significant events were at work.
Public schools worked well until about the 1970s. In fact, until that time, public schools provided far better education than private ones. It was the underperforming students who were threw out of public schools and went to private ones.
A prominent reason public schools did well was that many highly qualified women had few options for working outside the house other than being teachers or nurses. They accepted relatively low pay, difficult working conditions, and gave their very best.
Having such a large supply of talented women teachers meant that society could pay less for their services. Women’s liberation opened up new professional opportunities for women,and, over time, some of the best left teaching as a career option, bringing about a gradual decline in the quality of schooling.
Also around that time, regulations, government, and unions came to dictate pay, prevent adjustments, and introduce bureaucratic(官僚的) standard for adjustment. Large education bureaucracies and unions came to dominate the landscape, confusing activity with achievement. Bureaucrats regularly rewrite curriculums, talk nonsense about the theories of education, and require ever more administrators. The end result had been that, after all the spending, students have worse math and reading skills than both their foreign peers and earlier generations spending far less on education—as all the accumulating evidence now documents.
What do we learn from various studies on America’s public education?
根据第一段第一句“Various studies have shown that increased spending on education has not led to measurable improvements in learning”可知， 各种各样的研究表明， 对于教育越来越多的花费并不能带来可观的学习成绩提高。 C项符合此意， 因此选C项。
How do some people explain the decline in public education?
第四段中提到， 一些人简单地将公共教育系统的衰落归因于“the drain of skilled students by private schools”， 即高技能的学生都流向了私立学校。 因此， 选B项。
What was significant contribution to the past glory of public schools?
倒数第三段第一句提到， 当初公立学校成绩斐然的一个重要原因是许多非常优秀的女性可选择的职业很少， 只有教师和护士两种。 talented对应文中的highly qualified， 因此， 选择C项。
Why did some of the best women teachers leave teaching?
倒数第二段第二句提到， 女性解放运动为女性提供了更广阔的就业选择范围， 随着时间的推移， 一些优秀的女性不再选择教师岗位。 new career opportunities对应文中的 new professional opportunities， 因此， 选择A项。
What does the author think is one of the results of government involvement in education?
最后一段中提到官僚们对于教育的各种干涉及影响， 其中包括“require ever more administrators”， 也就是要求更多的行政人员。 因此， 选择D项。