Re: No Mas

[Scott Hays <shays@ccwebster.net>]

On Aug 12, 2006, at 3:20 AM, aABurke5054@aol.com wrote:
> Oh, thank goodness you guys are not asking me to prove the   
> existence of
> Platonic essences such as "proficiency" or how many angels can   
> dance on the head
> of a pin, only the difference between a 345 and a  344 ... suppose  
> the difference
> between a 344 and a 345 were one  item and the item
> were one you thought were really  important.  Wouldn't the  
> difference between
> a 345 and a 344 mean  something to you then?  ....

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.  Unfortunately, the latter is highly unlikely, and the  
former is made impossible by the way that tests are administered,  
scored and reported.  When I hand-scored the old CTBS tests (not  
scantron answer sheets, but the carbon copied forms), I could  
manually go through and breakdown individual performance on  
individual questions and groups of questions (three-digit  
multipliers, tense, -ed suffixes, etc.).  THAT was useful.  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?  And since I  
view my job, certainly in part, as "helping kids", then that type of  
information would be most useful to me.

More importantly, let's talk about individual kids -- not masses of  
kids.  The kid who received the 344 vs. the kid who received the  
345.  On a different scale, this is similar to the kid who averages  
89.8 on a semester's worth of math tests vs. the kid who averages 91  
on the same work.  One receives and A- and other a B+.  Not earth- 
shaking, perhaps ... certainly not to me or you ... but possibly  
plentiful painful to the kid(s) involved.  Without even factoring in  
personal attributes or history, there is much to scoff about an  
arbitrary assignment of cut-scores for a grade.  But it is precisely  
the personal histories that factor into a teacher's assessment --  
effort, past performance, improvement, help -- or lack thereof -- at  
home, and the like.  Many teachers do not take into account these  
factors ... they, in essence, emulate the cold and objective stance  
of the TEST.  That is their style.  Perhaps it is effective, perhaps  
it is not (my experience is that it isn't, but that, admittedly, is  
personal bias).  It is not my style, nor is it the style of most of  
my colleagues.

Am I speaking "Platonic essences" to you here, Art?  I don't think  
so ... it is the type of question that real classroom teachers ponder  
regularly, and whose answer affects real kids on almost a daily basis.
> Maybe the feedback from the feds caused the states to rethink and   
> redesign
> in ways that turnec out better for the schools and for parents  and  
> kids.  If
> you see a federal takeover of public education in  that or  
> totalitarianism
> lurking around the corner, more power  to you.  But this seems  
> pretty tame to me.

"Feedback from the feds", as you put it, means conformity to federal  
expectations.  You have said NCLB leaves the mechanics of improving  
schools "completely" up to the states, and yet the states cannot make  
those efforts unless they conform to federal requirements.  Sounds  
like the state efforts are not completely of their own design, and  
there appears to be a bit of "Big Brother" looking over the shoulder  
in the way Title I monies are doled out.

Scott Hays
shays@ccwebster.net

Scott Hays
shays@telis.org

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline.  
It helps
if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons,  
but at
the very least you need a beer."

- -- Frank Zappa