NY Times grade level

[Arthur Hu <ArthurH@TANGIS.COM>]

Ok, (I feel like the Professor)

Fliech = name of the method used to test
12.3 = grade level as determined by the test.
There were a bunch of columns about the 3 articles on the front page that
were used,
these numbers are the average of the 3 articles.

Fliech 12.3
Colman-liau 12.37
Bomuth 10.70
Fleish Kincaid 11.07

Since high school is G9-12, this would put the New York Times at about high
school
graduate level.

What we don't know is whether Grade Level means the highest level taught at
the grade,
or whether this means the median level of performance for all persons at the
grade level,
given the sorry state of performance based exit tests which are clearly
based on the
former definition, I suspect it also applies to these figures (that means
the ideal 12th
grader, not the sorry state of actual 12th graders out there which probably
corresponds
to proficiency at a 7th grade level)

The whole problem with high standards is the notion that every student
should be
expected to master the highest level of content taught at that grade level.
Nobody seems
to be capable or willing to argue that it's perfectly OK to graduate 12
years of high school
without being proficient in western literature, precalculus, or chemistry.




-----Original Message-----
From: Judi Hirsch [mailto:judih@OUSD.K12.CA.US]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 1:44 PM
To: ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU
Subject: Re: GED is about grade 6?


can someone PLEASE explain what these scores mean.
Judi

----- Original Message -----
From: Arthur Hu <mailto:ArthurH@TANGIS.COM>
To: ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU <mailto:ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 11:30 AM
Subject: Re: GED is about grade 6?

You missed the punch line. These are the final grade level results:

GLE and Content analysis for NYTimes Front Page 7June00
by Rick Parkany
http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/Resources/NYTimesGLE.htm
<http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/Resources/NYTimesGLE.htm>
Articles came out average
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Parkany [mailto:rparkany@BORG.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 8:37 AM
To: ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU
Subject: Re: GED is about grade 6?



Bob:        though you missed my point, in my reply to Art last evening, I
concede that the NYTimes reading level as *7th grade level* IS an urban
legend (and not a canard on my part). Indeed, Bob, your anecdotal rule of
thumb assessment was right on the money, as well...

To begin my penance, accordingly, I have supplied the following analysis
based upon sifting the 3 main articles from the NYTimes late edition today
into Lotus Millennium's WordPro. Here are the results (limited though they
are to 3 articles on one day--a representative, yet statistically
insignificant sampling, I concede), I hope this helps, and as a penance,
it's got to be better than having had my tongue cut out or my fingers lopped
off!


Keep well...    ;-} rap.
GOTO :
  NYTimesGLE <http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/Resources/NYTimesGLE.htm>  :
http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/Resources/NYTimesGLE.htm
<http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/Resources/NYTimesGLE.htm>


 (NOTE: Art1: Mideast Talks Are to Reopen Next Week in the U.S. By DEBORAH
SONTAG ; Art2: Corzine Defeats Florio for Senate Nomination By DAVID M.
HALBFINGER; Art3: Millions Facing Rise in Rates on AT&T Calls By STEPHEN
LABATON)


Bob Schaeffer wrote:


Rick Parkany wrote:
>
> 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?

Rick and others:
   I've seen the statement that the NYTimes is written/edited at a "7th
grade level" on this listserv several times and believe the claim is a
canard or, perhaps, an urban (newspaper) legend.
 ...SNIP...

   Does anyone have any hard evidence (i.e. a citeable source) to
support or dispute the reading level claim? I may just run MS Word's
grammar checker -- which includes several readability measures -- on
some sample NYTimes articles to see what college dropout Bill Gates says
on this matter.

Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing


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Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld bereit',
auf dem du bluehen musst." Peasant, Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany
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