Re: No Mas

[ABurke5054@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/12/2006 8:36:41 AM Pacific Standard Time,  
shays@ccwebster.net writes:

If one  could discern what the one item missed by the one and answered   
correctly by the other was, and that -- in fact -- was the ONLY   
difference in their performance, then perhaps your point would have   
relevance.  ....  A 344 vs. a 345 is hardly useful at all,  especially if I 
want to do something  to help the kid who missed the cut  score improve.  Where 
do I start,  
and how does the test score  help me figure that out


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Remember we started by saying that every item was important and that kids  
should know them.  What other differences between kids do you want beyond  one 
kid knows more than another?  How many angels dancing on the head of a  pin 
make a hootenanny? As to the problem of what to do next for the child who  got 
the item wrong, not every assessment is useful for diagnosing the needs  of 
individual learners.  State assessments are generally not useful for  that.  You 
need other means of doing that and if you don't have them, in  the form of 
classroom assessments or district wide assessments, you should  insist that your 
state provide them, or your district get them, or make them  yourself.
 
  Without even factoring in  personal attributes or history,  there is much 
to scoff about an 
arbitrary assignment of cut-scores for a  grade. 
_________________________________________________
As if "factoring in personal attributes or history" does not  include 
arbitrary judgements.  And if you think scoffing helps  kids, more power to you.  But 
what kids need is not more scoffers  about their tests and about the fabric 
of cut scores and proficiency, but people  who will do the work of helping them 
get the skills they need and making  schools better that have lots of kids in 
them that don't have the skills they  need.  Endless shooting of the 
messenger doesn't help at all.
 
Art