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Re: Just what we need

No. Other way around. Baker and Sternberg are saying education is going to hell because of tests. The "idiots" are saying competitiveness is going to hell because of tests. Same part - whole problem.

Art


-----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:16 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Just what we need


Art, I'm not exactly able to follow your logic. I say the idiots are making

too much of tests. Baker and Sternberg say the same thing. QED, it seems

appropriate to cite them.


JB

----- Original Message -----
From: <aburke5054@aol.com>

To: <arn-l@interversity.org>

Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 11:31 AM

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Just what we need



I believe that Samuelson was parsing the relationship between

competitiveness and education and learning more than he was teasing
out all

the factors that enter into competitiveness.



On another matter, it is an odd kind of discourse that labels
opponents

"idiots" and "professional fear mongers" for making too much of tests
and

then cites authors (Baker, Sternberg) who do precisely the same
thing, but

do it in a way that JB likes.



Art



-----Original Message-----

From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>

To: arn-l@interversity.org

Sent: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 8:13 am

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Just what we need





I have a different take on competitiveness--education is only a small

factor



in it.





What follows appeared first at www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey
(they



like for you to say that).





THE INMATES WHO WANT TO RUN THE ASYLUM





Here are some of the idiots and professional fear mongers who are
trying

to



control curriculum and instruction and education policy in our
nation's



schools:





Raymond Scheppach, Executive Director, National Governors
Association.



Bob Wise, former West Virginia governor, now executive director of
the



Alliance for Excellence in Education (a fear mongering group he
founded).



Susan Traiman, Business Roundtable.



John J. Castellani, president, Business Roundtable.



Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado, former superintendent of Los

Angeles



Public Schools, and formerly a pretty smart guy, now head fear monger
for

ED



in '08 which is trying to get the presidential candidates worked up
(so

far,



they've gotten worked up once and beat the hell out of No Child Left



Behind).



Vivien Stewart, Vice President of the Asia Society (how on earth did
she

end



up in this group?).



Andreas Schleicher, Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development



(the group that spearheads this "cognitive Olympics," horse-race view
of



international comparisons.





All these worthies gathered at a press conference on December 4, 2007
to



mourn the 2006 results from PISA, Program of International Student



Assessments. Every three years, PISA administers tests in reading,



mathematics and science to 15-year-olds. The US reading scores were

missing



this year because the test booklets were misprinted, giving confusing



instructions that no doubt garbled the answers. In mathematics, the
US



trailed 23 of 30 nations, in science it trailed 15. The Washington
Post



boredly mentioned that U. S. ranks were about the same as in 2003.





If the Post was bored, the speakers at the press conference were
incensed.



The BRT's Castellani pronounced himself outraged. "This is the
Olympics of



academics," said Wise, "and we need to respond." "Something needs to
be

done



and something needs to be done now," said Romer. "Our students'

performance



today is the best indicator of our competitiveness tomorrow," intoned



Scheppach.





Hello, Raymond! There is not a shred of evidence, not one shred that

scores



on these tests are linked to global competitiveness or other good
things



(Norway, considered on many variables the best place in the world to
live,



scores about the same as we do). The powerhouse World Economic Forum
just



issued its annual Global Competitiveness Report and guess who's
number 1



among 131 nations. The U . S. of A. It's been that way for four



consecutive years (9/11 dropped us to #2 for a bit). Get a copy,
Raymond.





Think about it for a minute. In four months we will "celebrate" the
25th



anniversary of A Nation At Risk. In 1983, that booklet claimed we
were



threatened by a rising tide of mediocrity. Well, the mediocrities
that



graduated high school that year are now 43 and pretty much running
the



country. The subprime mortgage mess indicates maybe some of them are
a



little short on the ethics side, but no one has claimed that
Structured



Investment Vehicles are the product of stupidity. They seem, rather,
to

be



the product of something that long antedates formal schooling, greed.
If



mediocre test scores were linked to economic well-being we'd have
long ago



been in the pits. Certainly we would not have seen that fabulous
economic



expansion from 1992 to 2005.





Journalist Fareed Zakaria noted that kids in Singapore score much
higher



than American kids on tests, but that 20 years later, it's the
American

kids



who are ahead of the game. He asked the Singapore Minister of
Education

why



this should be. The Minister said that while his kids had high test

scores,



American kids had talent. "We cannot use tests to measure
creativity,



ambition, or the willingness of students to question conventional
wisdom.



These are areas where Singapore must learn from America." Zakariya
also



quoted a father who had lived in America for a while and then moved
back

to



Singapore: "In the American school, when my son would speak up, he
was



applauded and encouraged. In Singapore he's seen as pushy and weird.



Schooling in Singapore is a chore. Work hard, memorize, test well"
(the



father put his kid in an American style private school).





Keith Baker, a retired U. S. Department of Education researcher got
the

same



message from a Swedish father living in L. A.: "He holds a high
position

in



a bioscience company," Baker wrote in the October Phi Delta Kappan.
"He



told me, 'There is no doubt that graduates of European high schools
know a



lot more than American grads, but I prefer my kids in American
schools



because Americans acquire a spirit that other countries lack.' Other



anecdotal sources suggest this 'spirit' involves ambition,

inquisitiveness,



and perhaps most important, the absence of a fixation on testing and
test



scores."





Recall that psychologist Robert Sternberg called our high-stakes
testing



programs "one of the most effective vehicles this country has created
for



suppressing creativity."





The Wises, Romers, Scheppachs, Castellanis and Traimans of the world
are



trying to kill American kids' spirit. They should be put out of
business



and otherwise taken to task.







----- Original Message -----

From: <aburke5054@aol.com>



To: <arn-l@interversity.org>



Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:18 AM



Subject: Re: [arn-l] Just what we need







Robert Samuelson has an interesting take on the education - economic



competitiveness issue. He argues that our "American learning
system"



(which includes "mostly post-high school and, aside from traditional



colleges and universities, includes the following: community

colleges;



for-profit institutes and colleges; adult extension courses; online

and



computer-based courses; formal and informal job training; self-help



books") together with our market economy compensate in many ways for



deficiencies in the schools. The result is that American maintains

its



economic competitiveness even in the face of a school system where

lots of



kids don't work very hard.










http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501131.html







Art







-----Original Message-----



From: Tauna Rogers <taunar@plateautel.net>



To: arn-l@interversity.org



Sent: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 6:01 am



Subject: [arn-l] Just what we need










http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071213/EDITORIAL/112130005







Advice from Roy Romer and Newt Gingrich. It's pathetic. Obviously

they do



not



read Bracey or Rothstein or anything that challenges the
conventional



wisdom.



Look at these snips, just weak paraphrases of ANAR:







"America is falling behind its global competitors and the economic



security of



our children is at risk."







"If an American corporation produced such mediocre outcomes, then
the

CEO



would



be fired immediately. Yet, American schools continue to churn out



below-average



students with no fear of consequences."







I do hope they get many scathing responses.=






























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