Re: [eddra] Charles Murray

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

I didn['t get to read the whole essay by Murray; 
but I object to his point on test scores.  Where 
he criticizes the states' practice of playing 
games with "proficiency" rates (politically safe 
cut scores, deceptive claims of cross-group 
improvements, etc), he denies the possibility of 
any kind of criterion-based 
assessments.  Surprise!  He alleges that 
"everybody knows" that students' knowledge falls 
in a bell curve.  Yes it does, if you DESIGN a 
test to produce "evenly distributed" 
scores!!!!  This is the basis of the circularity 
that has been used to defend IQ testing.  I 
welcome the criticism of NCLB from the extreme 
right; but let's not forget the deeply racist 
nature of Murray & co.'s overall view of human intelligence

Pete Farruggio





At 03:26 PM 7/25/2006, Rick Pratt wrote:

> This article is a good illustration of the point 
> that no single measure is sufficient to tell us 
> everything we need to know about what is 
> happening in a school, no matter how good and 
> useful that measure may be.  The additional 
> problem with NCLB is that the single measure we 
> use is not used in a diagnostic way to make 
> informed judgments about interventions, but 
> rather to trigger action from an established 
> list of interventions.  I like to contrast this 
> with the Federal Reserve Board, which, in making 
> a decision about the Prime Interest Rate, does 
> not use a single indicator (such as the Consumer 
> Price Index), but instead looks at CPI, GDP, 
> unemployment rate, factory inventories, and a 
> host of other data to make an informed 
> decision.  I am not aware of any business or 
> corporation that uses a single indicator to 
> evaluate its own performance, let alone use that 
> indicator to trigger­rather than 
> inform­action.  Schools are continually 
> admonished to be more ?business like.?  NCLB denies schools that option.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: eddra@yahoogroups.com 
> [mailto:eddra@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of mbsolomon@aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 11:04 AM
> To: eddra@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [eddra] Charles Murray
>
>
>
> In case you missed it, Charles Murray has 
> written a very interesting condemnation of NCLB for the Wall Street Journal at
>
>
>
> <http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008701>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008701
>
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