Dreamer Tatum slaps down two primitives

[USA4ME]

proud2BlibKansan

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

By Marion Brady

A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.

By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.

He called me the morning he took the test to say he was sure he hadn’t done well, but had to wait for the results. A couple of days ago, realizing that local school board members don’t seem to be playing much of a role in the current “reform” brouhaha, I asked him what he now thought about the tests he’d taken.

“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.

“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.

more . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/w...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2432543&mesg_id=2432543

First, he slaps down Anne.

Dreamer Tatum
 
35. That proves nothing. It doesn't even INDICATE anything.

At least Anne keeps her stupid mouth shut, to the point of this posting anyway.

Now it's the patrice primitives turn.

patrice
Response to Reply #35

36. Friendly question: What if you're the one who is shut out of numerous opportunities because you didn't get asked the right question?

Dreamer Tatum
Response to Reply #36

37. I have a non sequitur, too: I love ham.

patrice
Response to Reply #37

39. Pardon me for trying to engage an honest discussion. I will not be making that mistake again with you, but, then perhaps, that WAS your objective: obfuscation rather than elucidation.

Dreamer Tatum
Response to Reply #39

46. One person taking one test in one instance makes nothing lucid.

She keeps trying.

patrice
Response to Reply #37

40. So you think "non sequitur" is an absolute, ergo what others know/think is ir-relevant . . . another machine-mind planting the seeds of fascism.

Dreamer Tatum
Response to Reply #40

44. Yeah, I'm a fascist because one person taking one test is meaningless.
 
Suppose that guy was a failure in life. Would his test performance validate that failure?

Suppose a kid passes with flying colors. Is that kid guaranteed more success in life than the adult who did worse?

Suppose a kid failed with exactly the same score as the adult. Would that kid be assured of exactly the same success as the adult?

Do you see? (I'm guessing you don't)

One test taken by one person MEANS NOTHING AT ALL.

That didn't work.  She tries again.

patrice
Response to Reply #37

41. BTW, I have a book list for you; it begins with Thomas R. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . . . scientific - as in - the foundations of what we rather casually refer to as "knowledge".

Dreamer Tatum
Response to Reply #41

45. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

Meanwhile Kuhn would have taken a giant shit on this test-taking experiment and all the bullshit inference drawn from it.

.
 

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Lies. Damned lies. Statistics. And Anecdotes.

[Aristotelian]

I noticed him giving suitable bitch-slaps in a thread on proposed spending cuts in the Euro-zone as well. Doesn't bode well for his future.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I noticed him giving suitable bitch-slaps in a thread on proposed spending cuts in the Euro-zone as well. Doesn't bode well for his future.

I don't know if you've had the privilege of lurker for any length of time prior to your actual signing-on here at the Cave but if not: DT is actually a poster of some longevity.

It defies, really.

[Mike220]

I don't know if you've had the privilege of lurker for any length of time prior to your actual signing-on here at the Cave but if not: DT is actually a poster of some longevity.

It defies, really.

He's gotta have something juicy on at least one member of the Triumvirate.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Maybe what it really says a whole lot about is actually the professional standards in the field of that "Not actually smarter than a 10th-grader" person with the BS and two MAs (Remarkably murky about the majors, there, Pammy), which I'm guessing is in the Ed Biz.

BTW, the only real big difference I could find between the BA and the BS program in my undergrad years at a Big Ten U was that you had to take two years of foreign language for a BS, but could take one year each of two languages for a BA.  I tested into a capstone sophomore German three-hour course and took a year of (Very intensive) Russian, because that sounded like a whole lot more fun than slogging through sophomore-level German which was basically literature (Ick, but I suppose it'd be even worse if you were a German exchange student trying to read Finnegan's Wake, or trying to read Dostoyevsky even in English).