Re: Justification for the SAT

[kber <kber@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Bob Schaeffer wrote:

>   Like most pro-testing ideologues, Stephen McGinnis doesn't bother to
> get his facts correct.
>

Since McGinnis's post was a response to my piece basically dissecting his original
post, I had planned to deconstruct the message to which Bob responded as well.
I'm glad that someone already has.

McGinnis was also somewhat sloppy in his post where he referenced the work of
David Sadker, who having now seen the post has decided it is not worth responding
to.  Methinks that the best characterization of that piece that I care to make is
that it is a selective reference out of context of the work to which Sadker and
his late wife devoted much of their professional careers.  I also note that Sadker
is interested in a far different definition of masculinity than that seemingly
represented by McGinnis.  Stephen seems to think along the lines of Christina Hoff
Sommers whereas Sadker seems more oriented to refining what it means to be a man.

I do not know Sadker.  I was going to take a course with him on the question of
masculinity that he was offering at American U last Fall, but it conflicted with
another course I had to take at George Washington )yeah, I know I'm a students
Catholic, but that's the beauty of the consortium here in DC).  The required text
for that course was Michael Kimmel's The Gendered Society (Oxford Univ. Press,
2000).  Having read that book before I knew I was not going to be in the class,
methinks that McGinnis needs to reread his Sadker a bit more carefully and beware
of the temptation to refer to a scholar's work out of context.

Ken Bernstein