Another Half Baked Defense of Standardized Testing
Every now and then I peruse the pages of the official publication of the John Birch Society, the New American, which I like to think of as roughly the mental equivalent of licking a nine volt battery. Well maybe more like a car battery. Either way I come out of it with a giant headache, my pacemaker on the fritz, (do people still say that? On the fritz? Is that some kind of anti-Germanic slur?), and the unquestionable realization that I have just made myself stupider. Much, much stupider.
On Tuesday there was an article by an educator named Raven Clabough, called "To Test Or Not To Test, That Is the Multiple Choice Question." What she gains in points for headline cheesiness, she surrenders for having a name that reads like one of those scrambles you see before a movie that unscrambles to form the title of a movie like "A Hangover Club." (Check it out, it works!)
Quoth Raven, (now who's getting points for cheesiness?)
"Opponents claim that standardized tests do not display many other facets of a student’s capabilities. These opponents are simply unfamiliar with the definition of the term “standard” and may want to acquaint themselves with a dictionary to find that it simply refers to “that [which] is regarded as the usual or most common, an average or normal requirement."
Well, yes, they would find that if they looked up "standard" in the dictionary. Unfortunately the word in question is "standardized" which means "to bring to or make of an established standard size, weight, quality, strength, or the like." The point of a "standardized" test is not to test minimum level proficiency (though that is the point of certain standardized tests), but to create a "standard", whether it by low or high, by which to measure test-takers across a broad spectrum. Her later reference to AP tests as standardized would seem to indicate she understands this, but chose not to display that understanding in favor of her self-righteous, masturbatory dip into the Funk and Wagnalls.
But at least I did enjoy how she packaged it up in that condescending snark I used to get from my 8th grade English teacher when I forgot my copy of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" in my desk. (Don't worry, I wasn't planning on reading it anyway, I had already seen it on "Wishbone".)
Also, she goes on to ask, presumably rhetorically, "Have you ever had the 'pleasure' of catching Jay Leno's popular 'Jay Walking' segment on The Tonight Show?...It truly is embarrassing...and frightening." Which is nice, because we should totally be basing our educational policy decisions of television. If we're going to do that, than I'd like any and all healthcare bills that may or may not get past to do something about doctor's constantly having sex in the supply closet, as I've seen on "Grey's Anatomy" because, I think I remember something from biology about how sterile cause isn't supposed to contain other people's bodily fluids. But, what do I know. I went to public school and that's not really covered in our "standard" education.
On Tuesday there was an article by an educator named Raven Clabough, called "To Test Or Not To Test, That Is the Multiple Choice Question." What she gains in points for headline cheesiness, she surrenders for having a name that reads like one of those scrambles you see before a movie that unscrambles to form the title of a movie like "A Hangover Club." (Check it out, it works!)
Quoth Raven, (now who's getting points for cheesiness?)
"Opponents claim that standardized tests do not display many other facets of a student’s capabilities. These opponents are simply unfamiliar with the definition of the term “standard” and may want to acquaint themselves with a dictionary to find that it simply refers to “that [which] is regarded as the usual or most common, an average or normal requirement."
Well, yes, they would find that if they looked up "standard" in the dictionary. Unfortunately the word in question is "standardized" which means "to bring to or make of an established standard size, weight, quality, strength, or the like." The point of a "standardized" test is not to test minimum level proficiency (though that is the point of certain standardized tests), but to create a "standard", whether it by low or high, by which to measure test-takers across a broad spectrum. Her later reference to AP tests as standardized would seem to indicate she understands this, but chose not to display that understanding in favor of her self-righteous, masturbatory dip into the Funk and Wagnalls.
But at least I did enjoy how she packaged it up in that condescending snark I used to get from my 8th grade English teacher when I forgot my copy of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" in my desk. (Don't worry, I wasn't planning on reading it anyway, I had already seen it on "Wishbone".)
Also, she goes on to ask, presumably rhetorically, "Have you ever had the 'pleasure' of catching Jay Leno's popular 'Jay Walking' segment on The Tonight Show?...It truly is embarrassing...and frightening." Which is nice, because we should totally be basing our educational policy decisions of television. If we're going to do that, than I'd like any and all healthcare bills that may or may not get past to do something about doctor's constantly having sex in the supply closet, as I've seen on "Grey's Anatomy" because, I think I remember something from biology about how sterile cause isn't supposed to contain other people's bodily fluids. But, what do I know. I went to public school and that's not really covered in our "standard" education.
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