Whoa, that’s a long title. Nevertheless, I keep reading about this school board member who took the Florida high school test and earned a D. Interesting. Tim and I talked about it At the Chalk Face (hint, hint) yesterday. I support it. It’s all fun and that and junk. However, haven’t teachers and students been going on and on about this for years? No one listened. Then, one school board member writes about his experiences, and everyone’s in a tizzy. Go figure.
The #school #board member taking the #test: is this just another occasion of #teacher voices being ignored?
December 9, 2011 By 2 Comments
George Mason folk call the school board member on the carpet for conflating the cause for his poor score with his (underestimated?) need for high school mathematics. The logic, one would presume, would go something like this: “If, I, a respected and successful school board member does poorly on the math section of this test, then obviously the math we teach must not be that important to becoming a successful person.” Now I don’t hold as hostile a view of testing as it seems you do, but surely this is a problem in reasoning?
http://www.stats.org/stories/2011/Learning_math_stupid_dec13_11.html
Sure, nuance undermines his outrage, as you point out, but perhaps the standard should be that we do not mandate tests that we cannot pass. Thus, as a school board member, his position might require passage. If he’s going to claim that teachers can’t do their jobs, that they should be paid based on the test scores of their students, then those who stipulate those ridiculous mandates should be able to do the test themselves.