{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02239448751076658, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0068906115417743325, 'mean_word_length': 5.64, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Using Students' Cultural Heritage to Improve Academic Achievement in Writing

One of the greatest challenges facing educators today is raising the academic achievement of poor, and language minority students while at the same time providing a high quality education for all students. With the advent of standardized testing and accountability there is temptation for low-performing schools to focus solely on rising test scores by implementing remedial classes, testing preparation courses, and “teacherproof” standardized curricula. Yet rigorous standards and high stakes tests will not in themselves improve the academic achievement of a large segment of high school students, especially those who are alienated from school. In the process of preparing students for high stakes tests, a critical piece of the students’ lives and educational experiences is neglected (Amrein & Berliner, 2002). Although not disputing the need for rigorous standards, school accountability, and remediation, the question is what is sacrificed if the content is reduced to isolated skills and facts with little connection to the students’ experiences? According to Freire (1986),