[Winona Online Democracy]
Gene and others, I have been on the sidelines for several months now, but I believe I'll jump in here, at least for a bit. There are many arguments "for" standardized testing, but I don't find them to be at all "compelling." Such tests measure certain types of factual knowledge and the ability to algorithmically apply rules and procedures. In an effort to be completely "objective," standardized tests rule out one of the most important features of "ability," namely creativity. If we are really interested in "ability," then TIME and OBSERVATION are the two most important measures. We all seem to "know" ability when we see it. We can regcognize the manifestations of "ability." Often it takes time to discover if we have been doing the right things in our schools. This latency is the real problem with accountability in schools. Who wants to wait 10 years to observe how today's students are doing? The push to use astandardized tests to do that measuring for us is motivated by this latency. Unfortunately, standardized tests, while they sound soooooooo good, are in fact quite a bad tool for the job. They do a much better job of discriminating between students than they do of actually measuring students. We know our students are "better than" or "not as good as", but we really don't know how good they are! What's more, we don't have a glimmer of an idea what their ABILITIES are! Educational accountability measures must move beyond the standardized testing mentality. Such tests should be one of several different tools that educators bring to the table to assess their effectiveness. More importantly, educators and non educators alike must become informed about what standardized tests do and do not measure and what conclusions can be drawn from the results. An example of a misinformed conclusion is one involving "grade levels of competence." For instance, because of a score on a standardized test, we may be told that our SECOND GRADE son or or daughter is reading at a SIXTH GRADE level. What does this mean? Many people believe that this means that our child is reading as well as a sixth grade child. NOT TRUE! It means that our child is reading this SECOND GRADE MATERIAL as well as a sixth grade child would read this SECOND GRADE MATERIAL. There is a subtle but important difference. The subject of standardized testing is fraught with such misunderstandings and misconceptions. Standardized testing is quite useless as a SOLE method of assessing accountability in education. I'll stop there... -Leslie Hittner At 11:40 11/18/01 -0600, Gene Thiele wrote: > >[Winona Online Democracy] > >Dan, > >A compelling argument for standardized testing. How else can we determine >the 'ability' of the student? > >gene thiele >winona --------------- This message was posted to Winona Online Democracy Please visit http://onlinedemocracy.winona.org to subscribe or unsubscribe All messages sent to the list must be signed with your actual name. Posting of commercial soliticitations is not allowed on this list. Report problems or questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
