Re: (no subject)

Jack Lochhead (Jack_Lochhead@TERC.EDU <Jack_Lochhead@TERC.EDU>)
17 Nov 1995 07:55:13 -0400 

This discussion has not yet helped me see beyond the usual debate. 
Standardized tests only measure a very small part of the total human being's
potential but that is true of any possible instrument.  Until we are able to
encode all aspects of a person's past and future on a CD-ROM and use it to
clone infinite replicas of the individual we are never going to measure more
than a very small bit of the person.  But are we going to stop all sports
events because the outcome on one day does not represent what might have
happened on some other day?  Are we going to ban football because people who
do well in it are not equally good at tennis?  We have found that without
some kind of commonly accepted standards humans tend to perform well below
their optimum.  We ALL use standards to help ourselves perform and we ALL
learned those standards from other people.  The issue needs to be what
standards can we agree to and what kinds of things should we focus our
attention on.  It is clear that some State level standardized tests are
terrible.  How could we get them changed and to what?  Given that our
resources to measure things are limited what should we choose to do?
Jack_Lochhead@terc.edu <Jack_Lochhead@terc.edu>  

--------------------------------------
Date: 11/16/95 4:27 PM
To: Jack Lochhead
From: TEECH-Workshop@hub.terc.edu <TEECH-Workshop@hub.terc.edu>
Well put.  Of course, another part of the problem is that standardized tests
only test some kinds of knowledge, in some kinds of situations.  If there are
not severe constraints put on the testing situation, then it cannot be
standardized, of course.  And there aren't standard people, either.  
   More than all this, though, is that test scores are heavily value-laden,
even when we allow for all the caveats about the limitations of the tests.  
Talk about standardization *looks* like a meritocratic approach, but
unfortunately it is far from that.  
   Still, even if you can set up standard milestones, with all the
uncertainties that obtain, you can even less standardize teaching because the
students and the teacher mutually shape the interaction, and no teaher should
teach their subject exactly the same way to all students.  Once admitting
that trivial assertion, then "standards" must be allowed to be so broad as to
be essentially meaningless.    I worry sometimes that people take comfort
from the mere existence of standards, however hard to define.  
   I think this is more problematic the larger the population you try to
define standards for.  There are more and more constituencies to include,
more and more socioeconomic entities to include.  It's what makes politics so
hard in a country of a quarter-billion people.
-- Brian Drayton (brian_drayton@terc.edu <brian_drayton@terc.edu>) 

--------------------------------------
Date: 11/16/95 3:24 PM
To: Brian Drayton
From: TEECH-Workshop@hub.terc.edu <TEECH-Workshop@hub.terc.edu>
In reflecting on the comment ---
"Aren't we all aware of teachers who don't teach and students who don't 
learn? Isn't it common knowledge that some schools are "better" than 
others?  Why not have standardized ways to measure teaching and 
learning?"------      I thought how often assessment drives what and how 
material is taught. Unfortunately standardized tests don't only measure 
what students know. They also provide a framework to teachers as to what 
and how they should teach. 





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Date: 16 Nov 1995 16:17:31 -0400
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Subject: Re: (no subject)
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        Reply to:   RE>(no subject)