It's still work=insane, me=slammed around here. I'll be in meetings all day today and tomorrow. This weekend, I may be drinking heavily. Caveat emptor on any postings from Saturday, in other words.
But I do have a few quick things to put up..
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A Man Bites Dog story: An African American mother is fighting to rescind a rule that prevents her child from being given an IQ test. The rule follows from a a 1979 case in which "a judge decided IQ tests could not be used to determine children’s placement in special education classes in California," and the mother in question, Ms. Lewis, believes the assumption behind this is that all black children are dumb:
The ruling sought to address the overabundance of African-American students who were placed in special education classes after performing poorly on the IQ test, Lewis said.
Lewis doesn't deny that the test may have been discriminatory toward African-American children in the past. She's just convinced that the educational playing field is more level today.
"This is closet racism within the school district and the courts," she said. "Basically they're saying if you're black, you're dumb."
Others are urging Ms. Lewis not to open the door for minority kids to take such a "racially biased" test, thus reaffirming her assertion that a whole lot of people out there think all African American kids are too dumb to take IQ tests. She's right to call this "racism."
(Thanks to Devoted Reader Linda S. for the story.)
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THIS is why we need a sounder math curriculum in schools:
Confused about how to divide "kilos" of cocaine into ounces for sale, two teens from a Saanich private school turned to their math teacher for help, provincial court heard Monday.
An 18-year-old woman testified that a classmate -- when they were both Grade 11 students at St. Margaret's School for girls -- returned from the Thanksgiving holiday with a large quantity of cocaine which she intended to sell. But the two girls, who cannot be named because they were under age 18 at the time of the alleged incident, were unsure of its value since neither knew how many ounces there are in a kilogram.
"She asked me and I didn't know. We were in math class so the teacher would know. So I asked," said the testifying student.
The other student, now 18, is on trial in B.C. provincial court for possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking.
It's sad to see a promising enteprenurial career stalled by a inadequate math education, isn't it?
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She could have gotten 15 days in jail, but the cheatin' teacher from South Carolina chose the $800 fine:
A Columbia woman is the first teacher to be convicted of helping students cheat on the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, the state’s high-stakes standardized test...Deborah Primus, 32, a math teacher at Southeast Middle School in Richland 1, pleaded guilty to violating mandatory test security Tuesday, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
Circuit Judge Ernest Kinard Jr. offered Primus a choice of 15 days in jail or an $800 fine. Primus, who has been teaching for more than 10 years — first in Orangeburg 5, then in Richland 1 — chose the fine.
A state Department of Education committee will review the case and may decide to suspend or revoke her teaching license.
The "pressure" of testing is cited as a possible cause for her behavior. Here's a tip - if you can't stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.
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Students who rank low in good high schools are catching a break, as colleges are relying on such rankings less and less.
According to a survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, colleges and universities across the country are paying less attention to rank and placing more emphasis on good grades, application essays and standardized test scores, such as the SAT and ACT.
Among the 595 schools polled last year, 33 percent reported that class rank is of "considerable importance," down from 42 percent in 1993. At the same time, 61 percent said standardized test scores were an important factor in admitting students, up from 46 percent a decade ago. And 54 percent of schools surveyed said grades were a key factor, up from 39 percent in 1993.
"Finishing first or fifth at your high school doesn't tell a college as much about you as your standardized test scores or the strength of your curriculum because that they can compare to students at other schools," said David Hawkins, director of public policy for Alexandria, Va.-based National Association for College Admission Counseling.
In other words, if you're in the bottom half of a great (and competitive) school, and you have good grades and high SAT scores, your low ranking won't hurt you as much. Which is as it should be.
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Finally, here's an advice column for worried parents whose kids get straight A's but rock-bottom scores on standardized tests. The advice? Hey, lighten up! - the teacher's grades must be the more accurate assessment!
Q: My daughter's final report card puzzles me. She is a fifth-grader and received all A's this year. However, she had very low scores in math, social studies and spelling on a standardized achievement test given to her class. I am thinking that maybe her teacher was just handing out A's. How concerned should I be about the discrepancies between my child's report-card grades and her achievement-test scores?
A: To put your mind at rest that the teacher was not handing out too many A grades, consider your daughter's past grades on report cards. If she has been an A student in earlier grades, you should expect this pattern to continue...
Typically, teachers' grades give a good picture of how children are doing in school, because the teachers observe how the children are doing every day on a wide range of tasks. On the other hand, standardized tests are a one-time reading of students' abilities. One of the problems with these tests is that many students are not good test-takers. Others can get low scores because they were sick, did not try to do their best, or had some test anxiety. Also, standardized tests are considered to be especially unreliable in assessing the achievement of students of very high and very low ability.
Not necessarily - and they're certainly not "unreliable" to the point where a true A student will be bombing them. And while we're talking about "reliability," standardized exams are almost always more reliable than teacher grades, which can include inflation due to the teacher's assessment of "effort" rather than achievement.
When there is a discrepancy between a child's grades and standardized-test scores, there is always the possibility that the material on the test has not been covered adequately in the classroom. In this case, most of the other students in a class will also have low scores. Why don't you try to talk to a school counselor or psychometrist before school begins again to learn more about what your child's low standardized-test scores probably mean and how they can be improved?
It's "psychometrician," not "psychometrist." Why shouldn't the parent be urged to confront the teacher with the scores, rather than a counselor? And while parents should indeed find out as much as possible about the tests, they shouldn't start with the assumption that the test scores are more likely to be inaccurate.
Posted by kswygert at June 24, 2004 08:30 AM