one-room schools are part of the heritage of the united states, and the mention of them makes people feel a vague longing¹ for “the way things were2” one-room schools are an endangered species, however.  for more than a hundred years, one-room schools have been systematically² shut down and their students away to centralized schools. as recently as 1930 there were 149,000 one-room schools in the united states. by 1970 there were 1,800. today, of the nearly 800 remaining one-room schools, more than 350 are in nebraska. the rest are scattered³ through a few other states that have on their road maps wide-open spaces between towns.
   now that there are hardly any left, educators are beginning to think that maybe there is something yet to be learned from one-room schools, something that served the pioneers that might serve as well today. progressive educators have come up with progressive-sounding names like “peer-group teaching” and “multi-age grouping” for educational procedures that occur naturally in the one-room school. in a one-room school the children teach each other because the teacher is busy part of the time teaching someone else. a fourth grader can work at a fifth-grade level in math and a third ╟grade level in english without the stigma⁴ associated with being left back or the pressures of being skipped ahead. a youngster with a learning disability can find his or her own level without being separated from the other pupils in larger urban and suburban⁵ schools today, this is called “mainstreaming”. a few hours in a small school that has only one classroom and it becomes clear why so many parents feel that one of the advantages of living in nebraska is that their children have to go to a one-room school.

1. it is implied in the passage that many educators and parents today feel that one-room schools
a)need to be shut down.
b)are the best in nebraska.
c)are a good example of the good old days.
d)provide good education.

2. why are one-room schools in danger of disappearing?
a)because they all exist in one state.
b)because they skip too many children ahead.
c)because there is a trend toward centralization.
d)because there is no fourth-grade level in any of them.

3. what is mentioned as a major characteristic of the one-room school system in the second paragraph?
a)some children have to be left back.
b)teachers are always busy.
c)pupils have more freedom.
d)learning is not limited to one grade level at a time.

4.which of the following can best describe the author’s attitude toward one-room schools?
a)praising.
b)angry.
c) critical.
d) humorous.

5.it can be inferred from the last sentence that parents living in nebraska
a)don’t like centralized schools.
b)received education in one-room schools.
c)prefer rural life to urban one.
d)come from other states

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