Re: No Mas

["Sherman Dorn" <sdorn@tempest.coedu.usf.edu>]

Art Burke wrote:

> Absurd.  As if life-and-death decisions in the ER and decisions  about 
> the multiplication skills of 9 year-olds are the same thing.  

They're not.  That's the point.  When it's not a life-and-death decision,
the burden shifts to those who would want to claim utility for a cut score.

> The choices are not simply between definitions of  "proficiency" that 
> have justification to beat the band and definitions of  proficiency 
> that are so arbitrary as to be useless. The middle range is vast and 
> most if not all of the decsisions required by NCLB, for  example, 
> fall safely within it.  

Fine.  Pick a state and a grade.  Then show that the proficiency cut score
for math makes sense. I'm just asking you to demonstrate what you think is
true. What's so hard about that, if you really think proficiency cut scores
are sensible?

> The average African-American 12th grader achieves at the level of 
> the average White 8th grader.  In this context, quibbling about 
> justifying "proficiency" by faith or works strikes me as 
> a monumental exercise in silliness and morally bankrupt to  boot. 

The existence of the achievement gap does not justify any pseudo-oracular
process that comes down the pike. Don't you think there needs to be some
logic in school reform? This reasoning-from-urgency is what British
satirists who created "Yes, Prime Minister" call Politician's Logic:
Something must be done; here is something; therefore, we must do it. 

Sherman Dorn