tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11455634.post6064056261750544941..comments2023-10-08T04:36:50.656-07:00Comments on Choosing Democracy: Rhetoric, not reform in California educationDuane Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01437689584657643858noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11455634.post-35251127267181688102007-08-17T11:22:00.000-07:002007-08-17T11:22:00.000-07:00Thank you for the comment. I, of course, disagree....Thank you for the comment. <BR/>I, of course, disagree. You can assess critical thinking, values, and most important goals. You can not reduce these to simple scores on a standardized test. <BR/>This is not a liberal v. conservative issue. It is an issue of testing and assessment competence.Duane Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01437689584657643858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11455634.post-16363392798673926872007-08-16T10:53:00.000-07:002007-08-16T10:53:00.000-07:00"Rather than facing the inequality issue, major po..."Rather than facing the inequality issue, major politically imposed school reform efforts stress standardized testing as the driving force behind school reform at the k-12 level, particularly in low-income districts. Testing measures the ability to memorize small bits of information. It cannot measure critical thinking skills, the ability to function in a community or commitment to democratic principles"<BR/><BR/>This is flatly absurd. To the extent testing cannot measure critical thinking, nothing can. The only alternatives liberals suggest (to replace standardized testing) lead to enormous variabilities in grading standards. "Functioning in a community" happens best through hard work and discipline. Neither one of those are learned when tests are moved so kids can make easy, "feel good" grades.<BR/><BR/>Now ideologues want to remove testing in the workforce as well, and why not? If we're graduating kids who can't past tests in high school, they'll just fail at business. Not wanting that (and not wanting to force the issue in primary/secondary education) liberals simply set up new policies to limit the workforce too. Scragged.com <A HREF="http://www.scragged.com/blogs/scragged/archive/2007/08/16/literacy-not-allowed.aspx" REL="nofollow">discusses this further</A>.<BR/><BR/>Additionally, there is no way to "fix the inequality issue". Life is unfair and unequal. Teaching children to compensate for that and work around that is much more valuable in the long run then teaching them to whine about it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08356305907760646041noreply@blogger.com