Re: No Mas

[ABurke5054@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/7/2006 1:30:26 PM Pacific Standard Time,  
sdorn@tempest.coedu.usf.edu writes:

...Since  Glass's 1978 article, no one has come up with a solid technical  
counterargument to the point that any proficiency threshold is arbitrary.  

That doesn't mean that cut-scores can't *ever* be justified -- as  I've
written before, there's a good case for emergency-room triage  procedures.
But those are life-and-death  circumstances


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