Why U.S. universities are implementing a No Child Left Behind-style accountability program.
Comment: Vhttp://www.socyberty.com/Education/13-Ways-to-Help-Your-Child-Survive-Standardized-Testing.113308
Great read for parents!
Comment: Vhttp://www.socyberty.com/Education/13-Ways-to-Help-Your-Child-Survive-Standardized-Testing.113308
Great read for parents!
Comment: I find it very ironic that the colleges themselves fear like unfairly appearing to be poor performers because a multiple choice test does not accurately measure the depth of the education the student acquired and instead focuses on a simplistic, questionable fill in the bubble test that best measures how well as student tooks a test that day and not how motived, gifted, or academically engaged they are.
Hmmmm....did that description just sound suspiciously like the SAT / ACT ----the very vehicle the colleges themselves use to deny ...oops, did I say that out loud? i meant to say "admit" ......students ?
Gee, I guess the schools feel hurt being unfairly judged like that....
Comment: There is a programme on TV stating by one GE Head that USA has many specialised domain experts, India doesnt have, this statement includes engineering domain and software domain.
indian software lives on dollar strength and not on hightech people, afterall software is not hightech, its junk work done by key pushers, most people here in idnai doesnt know the calculus basics like why a derivative is used and whats the limit in the derivative is doing, they just blindly mugup. There is one fellow here called IIT Ramaiah lecturer who teaches just limits and he knows only that, and makes students mugup to get entrance to a dirty competitive entrance exams.
Indian software Industry is very dirty and the competition is very dirty,they think they are doing high tech work, they cheat the US companies for projects, and also the salary figures are hidden from the US clients(the one who outsources the projects to India), they say a salary figure of 1lakh and we have MS students as our employees, but tje salary given is just 60K rupees/month and the guys are just BE,MCA graduates, this is how they cheat and remaining money is going into black accounts, thereby decieving the stock holders too. The people think that they do high tech work, but what they do here is just clerical work by typing some code, a code is a format or rule developed by some company and one fellow has to tune it to their end application, for eg Vb or C, also wireles applications like cdma, tdma, etc are not technologies they are just formats and one has to learn each companies format.
Microsoft seem to take over the world by tying up with Intel last time in chip fabrication and certain code protection issues.
Now it wants to launch a TV too which is web enabled. This may include a built in popcorn machine and a soda maker too for the TV viewers. They seem to control the TV, and controlling the Internet with their code and industries with their software, they seem to take over the world....
Comment: There is a programme on TV stating by one GE Head that USA has many specialised domain experts, India doesnt have, this statement includes engineering domain and software domain.
indian software lives on dollar strength and not on hightech people, afterall software is not hightech, its junk work done by key pushers, most people here in idnai doesnt know the calculus basics like why a derivative is used and whats the limit in the derivative is doing, they just blindly mugup. There is one fellow here called IIT Ramaiah lecturer who teaches just limits and he knows only that, and makes students mugup to get entrance to a dirty competitive entrance exams.
Indian software Industry is very dirty and the competition is very dirty,they think they are doing high tech work, they cheat the US companies for projects, and also the salary figures are hidden from the US clients(the one who outsources the projects to India), they say a salary figure of 1lakh and we have MS students as our employees, but tje salary given is just 60K rupees/month and the guys are just BE,MCA graduates, this is how they cheat and remaining money is going into black accounts, thereby decieving the stock holders too. The people think that they do high tech work, but what they do here is just clerical work by typing some code, a code is a format or rule developed by some company and one fellow has to tune it to their end application, for eg Vb or C, also wireles applications like cdma, tdma, etc are not technologies they are just formats and one has to learn each companies format.
Microsoft seem to take over the world by tying up with Intel last time in chip fabrication and certain code protection issues.
Now it wants to launch a TV too which is web enabled. This may include a built in popcorn machine and a soda maker too for the TV viewers. They seem to control the TV, and controlling the Internet with their code and industries with their software, they seem to take over the world....
by
Anonumous Mattew
Comment: This is a horrible idea. I just had to suffer the indignity of taking the GRE this morning in order to apply to a PhD program. I was able to take the MAT for graduate school and I perform quite well (I received a 4.0). However, the PhD program requires the GRE which focus on areas I have not seen in 10 years and will not have a use for in school. It was an awful test, a waste of time, and a waste of $140 not mention it will not prove anything about my future performance. I did equally horrible on the SATs and I spent my entire undergraduate years fearing I was not smart enough.
Comment: Furthermore, eugenics does have some place in this argument. Mostly because of the fundamental underlying question: how do we define intelligence or academic success in a scientifically useful way? A standardized test gives us easy to process data in a continuous form but falls far short of assessing what we really want to know. Additionally, it gives over-taxed or lazy evaluators a tempting cop-out. While applying to grad school last year I was presented with this issue. I had attended this university for undergrad, graduated magna *** laude, aced every English class taken, had a fabulous essay, and had glowing teacher recommends. Counseling is my field of choice. The professor actually complained that my GRE written score was too low (it was average). As if the GREs held enough statistical weight to undermine all of my success. Like standardized test anxiety doesn't happen and everyone writes well on a time crunch. Standardized tests are tempting because they're simple but they're usually just a step above statistically useless.
Comment: Statistically, the GREs are the laughing stock of the testing community and are increasingly being thrown out in favor of in-house tests or common sense, comprehensive, evaluations. Accountability only has meaning when the tests/factors bare some relationship to known indicators of academic success (like GPA, professor evals, etc). We cannot move on to another standardized test when the ones we already have are so terrible.
Comment: This is unacceptable. I am a high school history teacher, and I have seen the damage done by standardized tests. I am planning on entering a Ph.D. program in order to become a college professor precisely because of my hatred for standardized testing. I may need to change my career course again to pursue a field outside of education altogether. It seems we've lost all common sense when it comes to effective teaching and learning.
Comment: The human brain should be used for processing, not storage.
???Thomas A. Kelly, Ph.D.
The Effective School Report
Comment: The human brain should be used for processing, not storage.
???Thomas A. Kelly, Ph.D.
The Effective School Report
Comment: I think that colleges should be accountable for reporting percentage of grads getting jobs and going to grad school. As a career counselor, I saw some outdated programs survive due to professors not wanting to lose a job. This is unethical for the student who is led to believe many jobs exist and pays for a degree that will not serve them in the real world. At the same time, I think that our achievement oriented culture needs to remember the stylistic and qualitative side of education--the nuances and personality that make each institution unique and is hard to evaluate except through commentary. As far as testing college grads in an SAT style manner...hmmm...if a critical thinking test is created, the only way to compare the institution's role in their student's achievement is to test them on Day 1 and test them on the day they leave the college. Otherwise, are you testing the basic group IQ of the student body which some schools will obviously excel at in comparison to other schools. Would this testing be done by subject area? Obviously, an art major will excel in art related intelligence and a biochemistry major in science related intelligence. By the way--the commentary on eugenics didn't really make much sense in this context--if interested in that subject, add Thomas Sowell to your reading list for a broader perspective.
Comment: I meant learning not learing- It must have been a bathroom stall moment! Sorry!
Comment: This is nothing more than eugenics. Standardized testing is the remaining bastion of the eugenic movement.
This is deisgned to keep the caucasian male who performs better rich and the minority populations poor..More Republican deception- their educational degrees resulted in CIA outings, WMDs deceptions and shrugs in response to scrutiny. However, it appears their educations did not include ethics. In a land where the president does not speak English, and has a Ivy league diploma, it seems that we would be better served to develop educational opportunities for everyone. Master teachers allowed to teach to allow student mastery and intrinsic learning. It is easy for some students to "reach the high bar" of education. A master teacher can lift and help a marginal students believe that they are worthy of reaching the bar, teach them skills to reach the bar and exceed the expectations of naysayers who only believe in "testing out" those who do not meet expectations. . America should encourage learing not testing.
Comment: this is no more than eugenics. Lok only to research to see that minorities still lag in standardized testing scores. This is a test scored the highest by caucasian men and the hidden agenda is to keep it white and rich and the poor and monorities in their place- inservitude and low wage jobs! Shame on universities for buying into the Republican line. Anyone out there for academic freedom and say...independent thought?
Comment: Guess we will see a continuum of regurgitation of facts and no emphasis on critical thinking! How is this going to position us to compete with the emerging global leaders in the STEM disciplines? How does this promote and cultivate creativity in our future?
I am highly disappointed to see a flawed Bush policy makes its way into higher education.
Comment: Rather than obsess over testing, I would like to see colleges concentrate on making teaching a priority for professors. I have a bachelors degree, a J.D. and I am currently in a masters program, and at each level I had (and have) professors who were much more interested in their research than in classroom teaching. I have no problem with a research-oriented person performing research, but colleges should not force these people into the classroom; it just makes them miserable, and does nothing for the students. Rather, I would like to see colleges divide professorships into two separate tracks: research professorships and teaching professorships.
Research professorships would be just that: devoted to research. These professors would be dedicated to their research and producing grants and publications to achieve tenure (all professors do this now). There are brilliant researchers with limited people skills that would jump at the opportunity to continue groundbreaking research and leave the classroom behind.
Teaching professorships would require something like a teaching certificate (which could be incorporated into a PhD curriculum) similar to what elementary and high school teachers are required to attain in every state. The professors would be freed from the pressure of the "publish or perish" culture of academia, and the students and professors would be better off because of it. Some of my best teachers were unable to receive tenure because they were more interested in their students' learning than publishing in prestigious academic journals, and they should not be punished for making that decision.
Obviously, there will be many professors that choose to teach and research, and that is fine. Our colleges and universities have thousands of examples of professors that excel at both disciplines. For those that don't, there should be a choice that allows them to contribute to academic life in the way that best suits their individual desires. That would be a win for the professors, students and the administrators at our colleges and universities.
Comment: Standards tests probably have some merit for k-12 students who need to master the three r's. It is completely useless on the college level where critical thinking is what matters. Margaret Spellings should deal with failing urban schools before she bothers with college students who, if they graduate, will probably do just fine in life.
Comment: Standards tests probably have some merit for k-12 students who need to master the three r's. It is completely useless on the college level where critical thinking is what matters. Margaret Spellings should deal with failing urban schools before she bothers with college students who, if they graduate, will probably do just fine in life.
Comment: Testing in academia is SUPPOSED to point out areas of weakness, because that is where the student needs to focus. We aren't talking about preschool at daycare, so its silly to expect a gold star and a pat on the back every time junior gets back an exam. That would be a waste of the professor's, the TA's as well as the student's time to administer "feel good about yourself" exams. If junior can't do math or science or whatever, isn't it best he/she KNOWS that rather than both his teachers AND his parents feeding him B.S. about how wonderful he/she is at the subject? It's a difficult task keeping a child's self-esteem healthy and adequately preparing them for the real world. But reality is out there waiting for them, and unless they live with their parents the rest of the life, Mom and Dad should err on the side of honesty when it comes discussing how well a kids performance has been at something. You won't be crushing their dreams, a dream is only crushed when reality makes clear it is beyond the dreamer's capabilities. This is going to happen more often to the adult who as a child always got a gold star and a pat on the back, no matter how poorly they did in a class.
Comment: I have a child that excels in most subjects but does poorly in math. These tests make him feel stupid by focusing on the weakness and not promoting the strenghts. As a college major will not be in the math field , I don't understand the point of an further demoralizing tests. Personally, I want to see how well our representatives in Washington would fare on such tests.
Comment: I have a child that excels in some subjects but is terrible at math. These types of tests make him feel stupid by focusing on his short comings rather than his strengths. His career path will not be as a math major so why subject him to further demoralizing "standard" tests.
Comment: Great......just another way to raise the drop-out levels for the kids of America. Kids are literally being tested to death!
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