In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Dear Dr. Henry
>(cc Edstat-L, as invited)
..............
> Are Americans prepared to require large numbers of
> students to repeat a grade when they deserve promotion?
>might be answered "why not, if 'deserving promotion' has nothing to do
>with their preparedness for the next level, but is an unmeasurable
>abstraction related to the testing system?"
I suggest instead that we ask the following two questions.
Is anything accomplished by not promoting someone
who has a reasonable understanding of the material,
even well before the end of the term?
and
Is anything accomplished by having someone repeat
material taught in the same manner?
................
>Let us take it as understood that any student who has reasonable mastery
>of the material will only benefit from promotion. The question is, how
>does the benefit change up to that level? If the hypothetical curve is
>like
The one who has reasonable mastery will benefit from not
being there, no matter how it was obtained.
The one who does not have is unlikely to acquire it from
any amount of repetition.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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