San Francisco
Mar. 22nd, 2006 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weaktwosHere I am again in lovely San Francisco. I'm waiting for an attorney to finish working on her box so I can do some preventative maintenance on it. Then, it shall be lunch and back home. This office has a lovely view of the Bay, and the drive in was the best it could have been, me thinks.
On the way in, I was listening to NPR. The big issue: This year is the first year California has gone to standardized tests in order for students to get their diploma. It is expected that 40,000 students will fail.
I have some problems with this method of garnering a diploma.
1) I hate standardized tests, and hold that they do nothing towards guaranteeing your success as an individual in society.
2) I believe that creating an environment where students must take a standardized test to achieve their diploma will enourage schools to educate to pass a test, rather than create an environment of learning more than how to answer a multiple choice test.
On the other hand, Lawyers have to pass the Bar Exam, and I don't think it made the graduate programs in Law degrade. Then again, I don't know if the quality of law programs has declined or not. On the other hand, students do not have their law degree taken from them.
The argument currently bouncing about is that students who would normally pass their classes sufficient to graduate are unable to pass the test.
Proponents of the exam note that students need only answer 50% of the questions correctly. One would think that it would be easy enough to do, if you were passing your classes.
What does this mean, in the final analysis? Will it make our schools better in the long run? Will companies formerly searching for unskilled labor no longer require at least a high school diploma, because more students will fail to acquire it?
Are we harming lower income people more by doing this? If the problem is that the current education system is failing low income students who have lives that detract from allowing them to learn (they have to work at a younger age to help their family, domestic problems, drug dependency, etc.), How will standardized testing help them in the long run?
On the way in, I was listening to NPR. The big issue: This year is the first year California has gone to standardized tests in order for students to get their diploma. It is expected that 40,000 students will fail.
I have some problems with this method of garnering a diploma.
1) I hate standardized tests, and hold that they do nothing towards guaranteeing your success as an individual in society.
2) I believe that creating an environment where students must take a standardized test to achieve their diploma will enourage schools to educate to pass a test, rather than create an environment of learning more than how to answer a multiple choice test.
On the other hand, Lawyers have to pass the Bar Exam, and I don't think it made the graduate programs in Law degrade. Then again, I don't know if the quality of law programs has declined or not. On the other hand, students do not have their law degree taken from them.
The argument currently bouncing about is that students who would normally pass their classes sufficient to graduate are unable to pass the test.
Proponents of the exam note that students need only answer 50% of the questions correctly. One would think that it would be easy enough to do, if you were passing your classes.
What does this mean, in the final analysis? Will it make our schools better in the long run? Will companies formerly searching for unskilled labor no longer require at least a high school diploma, because more students will fail to acquire it?
Are we harming lower income people more by doing this? If the problem is that the current education system is failing low income students who have lives that detract from allowing them to learn (they have to work at a younger age to help their family, domestic problems, drug dependency, etc.), How will standardized testing help them in the long run?
