2016年06月六级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

America's education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequality from one generation to the next.

美国的教育体系已不再是机会的阶梯，而更像是一个将不平等代代相传的机制。

That's why school reform is so critical. This is an issue of equality, opportunity and national conscience. It's not just about education, but about poverty and justice.

这就是为什么学校改革如此关键。这是一个关乎平等、机会和国家良知的问题。它不仅关乎教育，还关乎贫困和正义。

It's true that the main reason inner-city schools do poorly isn't teachers' unions, but poverty. Southern states without strong teachers' unions have schools at least as awful as those in union states. Some Chicago teachers seem to think that they shouldn't be held accountable until poverty is solved. There're steps we can take that would make some difference, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying some of them—yet the union is resisting.

确实，市中心学校表现不佳的主要原因不是教师工会，而是贫困。没有强大教师工会的南方各州，其学校至少与有工会的州一样糟糕。一些芝加哥教师似乎认为，在贫困问题解决之前，他们不应被追究责任。我们可以采取一些措施来产生影响，市长拉姆·伊曼纽尔正在尝试其中一些——但工会却在抵制。

I'd be sympathetic if the union focused solely on higher compensation. Teachers need to be much better paid to attract the best college graduates to the nation's worst schools. But, instead, the Chicago union seems to be using its political capital primarily to protect weak performers.

如果工会只关注更高的薪酬，我会表示同情。教师需要获得更高的薪水，以吸引最优秀的大学毕业生到全国最差的学校任教。但相反，芝加哥工会似乎主要利用其政治资本来保护表现不佳的教师。

There's solid evidence that there are huge differences in the effectiveness of teachers. The gold standard study by Harvard and Columbia University scholars found that even in high-poverty schools, teachers consistently had a huge positive or negative impact.

有确凿证据表明，教师的效能存在巨大差异。哈佛和哥伦比亚大学学者的黄金标准研究发现，即使在贫困率高的学校，教师也始终产生巨大的正面或负面影响。

Get a bottom 1% teacher, and the effect is the same as if a child misses 40% of the school year. Get a teacher from the top 20%, and it's as if a child has gone to school for an extra month or two.

如果遇到排名末位1%的教师，其效果等同于孩子缺课40%的学年。如果遇到排名前20%的教师，其效果则等同于孩子多上了1到2个月的学。

The study found that strong teachers in the fourth through eighth grades raised the skills of their students in ways that would last for decades. Just having a strong teacher for one elementary year left pupils a bit less likely to become mothers as teenagers, a bit more likely to go to college and earning more money at age 28.

研究发现，四年级到八年级的优秀教师提升学生技能的方式会持续数十年。仅仅在小学阶段拥有一位优秀教师，就能使学生青少年时期成为母亲的可能性降低一点，上大学的可能性增加一点，并在28岁时收入更高。

How does one figure out who is a weak teacher? Yes, that's a challenge. But researchers are improving systems to measure a teacher's performance throughout the year, and, with three years of data, it's usually possible to tell which teachers are failing.

如何识别谁是表现不佳的教师？是的，这是一个挑战。但研究人员正在改进系统，以全年衡量教师的表现，并且，通过三年的数据，通常可以判断哪些教师在失败。

Unfortunately, the union in Chicago is insisting that teachers who are laid off—often for being ineffective—should get priority in new hiring. That's an insult to students.

不幸的是，芝加哥工会坚持认为，被解雇的教师——通常是因为表现不佳——应在新招聘中获得优先权。这是对学生的侮辱。

Teaching is so important that it should be like other professions, with high pay and good working conditions but few job protections for bottom performers.

教学如此重要，以至于它应该像其他职业一样，有高薪和良好的工作条件，但对表现不佳者提供较少的工作保障。

This isn't a battle between garment workers and greedy bosses. The central figures in the Chicago schools strike are neither strikers nor managers but 350,000 children. Protecting the union demand sacrifices those students, in effect turning a blind eye to the injustice in the education system.

这不是服装工人与贪婪老板之间的斗争。芝加哥学校罢工的核心人物既不是罢工者也不是管理者，而是35万儿童。保护工会的要求牺牲了这些学生，实际上是对教育体系中的不公正视而不见。