Re: GED is about grade 6?

[Arthur Hu <ArthurH@TANGIS.COM>]

Sheesh. My point is the disconnect between GED and the new
state standards. If GED is the old standard, then high school
diploma is really high elementary / low middle school level,
and then they claim passing the GED puts you in the top 25%
of the high school class. The new standard is somewhere between
college prep and gradudate level math depending on the state.
Perhaps we can get some mileage out of this obvious disconnect
by arguing that GED level skills really _is_ good enough for a
diploma and anybody that says "well it's the 21st century and
we can't have that anymore" is a danged fool. If anything maybe
the anti-testers should be attacking the GED test since it in all
likelihood discriminates as much as any other test does - do these
guys publish race breakdowns like the College Board does? I'd love
to see those figures.


I don't think it's a slam to say most ed majors don't retain more
than G7 math, I don't think anybody but math / science majors can
really be expected to do better than that in real life.

You folks should see the new Lake Washington standards, they're
require a laundry list of items that probably 0% of any previous
seniors would meet, even for the lowest level of diploma:

http://www.lkwash.wednet.edu/lwsd/pdf/L5Draft61.pdf

They just approved these last night, I believe they are the worst
requirements ever adopted on this planet. The top level diploma
requires passing 5 AP tests. These Outcome Based Education
graduation requirements are a whole new movement on top of the
test requirements.

They should make any officials passing such rules be willing to
give up THEIR diplomas until they can re-pass the new standards.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Parkany [mailto:rparkany@BORG.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 2:39 PM
To: ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU
Subject: Re: GED is about grade 6?


Well, Art: *New*? the NYTimes used to be pegged @ *7th grade level* for
reading, as per content and form analysis. What does THIS tell you about
norms. But, then again, what, exactly, DO norms tell us, beyond how clever
our
proxies for reality and the true stuff of the educational experience are?

Obviously, literacy is not to be measured either in reading grade-levels,
nor
in SBE--OR, as some clear thinkers this list have intimated, we'd be all
slaves to Japanese Racism, German Industrialism, Chinese National Socialism,
or Slavic Stalinism, now. Just look at the cut scores on most SBEs--they're
fast approaching the scandal of minimal testing protocols as per the NYS
MCTs
(minimal competency tests that these new Regents' standards are
supplanting)--and before the trainwreck and catastrophe of combining SBE
w/no-social promotional policies finally occurs, we're going to see them
coming lower & lower along w/more and more classified waivers--OR--we're
going
to HAVE the catastrophe and an ample political opportunity to clean things
up
in the breach--a quit tragic aftermath, indeed, but a hope, nonetheless.

No, Art, literacy is not to be measured at all; but that is not to say that
it
is unable to be assessed nor evaluated. My point in referencing the GED, was
not as a standard, but as an escape hatch in the flight from public schools
instigated by the SBE/no-social promotion axis in educational policy, my
libertine friend!

GimmeABreak, Art! You want our support in this anti-SBE movement, but in
times
like this, you turn coat and start comparing, measuring, and baiting like
the
best of standardistas. And just look at how ready you are to teacher-bash,
as
well. If you really think GLEs (grade level equivalents) can indicate good
teachers, just *come out*, and say so to the list! Then, we'l see your true
stripes, Eh?!

Remember, Art: your libertarian framework and ITs massive failure as
practiced
in States Rights policies in the Deep South were precisely those failed
social
attitudes that precipitated the Federal intervention in education you hold
in
such contempt from your agenda, in the first place. Combined with an
intolerance and contempt that you exhibit for most of your correspondents,
this vacillation, baiting, and meanspiritedness is a nasty mixture, indeed
for
a political candidate. Careful, mate! your fascist slip is showing...    ;-}
rap.

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