The Baltimore Chronicle publishes a long, long, meandering and bizarre slumgullion of conspiracy theories and ignorant statements and calls it a commentary. I just have to note that this particular member of the "reality-based community" doesn't fail in his required anti-testing-propaganda duties:
No Child Left Behind has left teachers behind, as they have little recourse but to teach their students to succeed on a standardized test, which represents a very shallow educational goal. It leaves little room for nurturing innate curiosity and fostering independent thinking...
Which is presumably what Baltimore's teachers were doing before NCLB came along - you know, when all that innate curiousity was being so nurtured that Baltimore's students were doing so well on all those other measures of academic achievement.
And while we're at it, I'd like to offer $100 to the first person who can produce solid evidence (research in peer-reviewed journals, that sort of thing) showing either (a) that independent thought and curiosity are skills that cannot be taught in conjunction with the basic skills that tests measure, or (b) that measures of independent thought/curiosity are more predictive of adult success than are standardized test scores.
Oh, sure, I'm beating a dead horse, but it never fails to amaze me, the power these testing opponents ascribe to tests. Just one class on basic skills and one day filling in bubbles, and poof! There goes all that innate curiosity of yours!
Posted by kswygert at June 27, 2005 11:31 PM