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jpalm
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I personally enjoyed the standardized tests. But that's probably because from 3rd grade on, I had the maximum score (12+ grade). Now, I have raised 3 children who have scored in varying levels. I believe these tests DO provide parents with a clue as to their childrens strengths/weaknesses. Of course, every child(PERSON) is unique. Sometimes it will tell you that the kid stresses about taking tests!
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watsonville resident
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These tests tell me what I already know about my kids' academic ability, because I pay attention to their education.
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S McDowell Pres UDEA
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Before I go off on my tangent against standardized testing, let me at least concede that they are useful in reporting to parents and educators the strengths and weaknesses among individuals and groups. Educators can utilize these assessment results to drive instruction by targeting specific academic or demographic areas for improvement.
Now, let me open fire!
One of my pet peeves regarding fiscal promiscuity are the textbook and test publishing companies that regularly extract a fortune from California taxpayers. I cannot tell you how many "versions" of a standardized test I have administered to my students in the past 20 years. The continual revisions are extremely costly and make it a statistical impossibility to track reliable achievement trends year to year. One way to contain costs would be to stick to the same test for at least 10 years. That would also allow for the gathering of accurate data for trend analysis, and it would be a better indicator of school performance.
I can tell you that the textbook companies exact a hefty price for the curricular adoptions that float around every seven years. Personally, I have been paid $75 per hour from these corporations to sit on a marketing research panel and consult on textbooks geared to the grade level I teach. They ask nothing about content or pedagogy and everything about color, layout and artistic design. Countless dollars would be saved by creating a 10 year curricular adoption cycle instead of contnuing to use the 7 year cycle we now have. I've often said that "Someone is sure lining their pockets, but it sure ain't me!" when it comes to the dollars received from educational spending. I know who some of them are.
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Ket Pattle
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Back when I was in school 7x6 was always 42 and if you did not spell the word "remorseful" right, than it was wrong. Under those old methods it was pretty easy to monitor a kids performance. It did not take anything more than a teacher, a student, a red pencil and a parent. I don't even think there are wrong answers anymore in grade school in an effort to develop high self esteem in all kids.
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Stephen A
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Ket Pattle wrote: I don't even think there are wrong answers anymore in grade school in an effort to develop high self esteem in all kids. No duff. SCHS has no less than 12 valedictorians this year! Guess straight-A students are too fragile to be excluded from recognition.
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Mel D
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It isn't the tests themselves, its the federally driven mandates and penalties of the No Child Left Behind Act that messes with your child's education. To avoid penalties, schools divert curriculum toward areas that are testable, ie, reading, math, science, etc., and away from music, arts, and those parts of reading, science, and math that encourage problem solving or critical thinking. If it can't be measured in a multiple choice question then it's not tested, and if it's not tested it's taught less frequently.
The 'numbers' that schools must reach to avoid penalties get ratcheted up each year. But not in small steps. No, geometrically. According to the Act, by 2013 ALL California students - rich, poor, Special Ed., students just learning English - must meet UC entrance requirements. What a noble goal. And what an impossibility. Of course, there is no funding (the President has never asked for full funding of the NCLB Act) but that isn't the goal of the Act. Schools are set up to fail.
To have an educated country, a country must be willing to build the infrastructure to support it. Good schools, yes. Qualified instructors, yes. But also a community infrastructure where education and its byproducts - research, discussion, debate - are also valued. A community where looking out for others is valued.
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OMG
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Miles, you're right, and if all cyclists were as considerate as you and followed the rules of the road to the letter there would be few problems sharing Mission St. with bikers. But as you are aware we have all sorts of people on bikes here in SC and it ends up just not being safe to have themon such a narrow, busy road. There are alternatives, and they should be explored for everyone's safety and benefit.
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OMG
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12 valedictorians? That's hysterical!
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James Anderson Merritt
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If cyclist safety is beyond debate, then there should be no debate about banning cyclists from the Hwy 1 portion of Mission Street, either. As long as there are cyclists using that road, cyclists will be injured and die.
To truly improve the odds for cyclists, we must REMOVE traffic from Mission Street, either vehicles, cyclists, or both. How likely is it that we will remove vehicular traffic, either by rerouting vehicles or banning/rationing them outright? The more likely and reasonable thing would be to reroute cyclists, and I think that must eventually happen. Cyclists can get ahead of that wave and plot out their own best alternative routes themselves, as individuals or working together to establish "standard" bike routes, or they can wait until more have been injured or killed, and push comes to shove on this issue. Mark my words.
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James Anderson Merritt
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Mel D wrote, "To have an educated country, a country must be willing to build the infrastructure to support it. Good schools, yes. Qualified instructors, yes. But also a community infrastructure where education and its byproducts - research, discussion, debate - are also valued. A community where looking out for others is valued."
Before the public school "system" became pervasive throughout this country, literacy was remarkably high, and those people who read tended to think for themselves and explore their own spiritual and economic limits.
Today, with an entrenched public school system being taken for granted, we have, for example, millions of citizens who cannot tell the difference between passages in our own Constitution and excerpts from the Communist Manifesto or the UN Declaration of Human Rights. We have millions of citizens who cannot understand the no-win situation of the sub-prime lending schemes, and millions more who cannot calculate the payback time for an LED light bulb vs. an incandescent. We have people who believe that today's problems are unique to this generation, and who are genuinely surprised to find that thinkers for the past several thousand years have grappled with similar problems in their societies and generally came up with better answers than the tripe served up by today's politicians. It goes on and on, and it makes me sad.
In order for this country to remain strong and free, our citizenry MUST be educated, just as to continue to live, a human being MUST eat. But it is very clear to me, after watching the decline of the politically motivated and controlled public school system, and the corresponding decline in citizen competence, over the past four decades, that political control and funding is not the way to get good education for all, or even for most. Just as political control of effort and resources generally leads to high prices, shortage, and famine when it comes to food, political control of education has led to high costs, shortage, and intellectual/academic "famine." The body politic has been starved for years, and is now showing all the signs of deficiency diseases. Standardized tests can only indicate this sad situation and its continuation. Unless we fix the underlying system -- taking it away entirely from the politicians and special interest lobbyists (including those representing unions)-- things can only get worse.
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