Re: Looking for Specific Examples of Inappropriate Use of Tests

["drdanj@earthlink.net" <drdanj@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Deanna

CEOs need not "assure" their kids don't have to take the tests. All they
have to do is send their kids to private schools. We already know that
rich white kids tend to get declared Special Ed at high rates just
before taking tests. Why is this a big deal? Come on Deanna, it is so
that they can get extra time to take the tests, I said nothing about not
having to take the tests. Yes, Deanna, people do this to squeeze out
that higher score. In the world you are creating, the score is all that
matters, and so the cost benefit analysis yields go for the score.

You try to derail my point and then do a good job of beating up your
derailed train. has nothing to do with my point, so if you want to come
back and argue the point, fine. If you want to create your own stuff and
beat it up, be my guest, sort of oddly fun to watch from the sidelines,
but only in an intellectually voyeuristic manner.

>But I do not support test prep to get
someone to pass a test JUST to get into a gifted and talented program
FOR
ANYONE, rich, poor or indifferent.  This has the effect of INVALIDATING
the
results of the test.  But of course, you'll tell me get real, test
publisher
execs have access to the tests and want the best for their own chidden.

Say what? Deanna, I don't think anyone much cares what you think about
taking test prep classes passing tests just to get into programs,
because, (psst said very quietly) they are doing it whether you like it
or not.

>See I am getting good at this, Dan.  I know your comments before you
make
them.  I am not being facetious.

ROFLMAO! :-) I guess we must have a secret relationship that I know
nothing about, is it one of my other personailities sneaking out late at
night for rendevous? Talk about a straw man, even my wife says she never
knows what I am going to do or say next, and that is her profession, so
what makes you think you are so good? Wow, Deanna, your anxieties are
starting to appear. (I am not being facetious, either.)

> I know well that there are many
psychologists that have access to IQ tests, etc. who prep their kids on
them
so that they kids make it into gifted and talented programs.

Okay, you want to stand on your moral high horse? Well, have you
reported these people? Seems that would meet your ethical standards.
Give me names and evidence and I will report them because my
professional license would require me to do that. And with the numerous
other psychologists I know, I have never ever once had any sort of
inkling that any of them or anyone in any of our circles would have ever
breached our legal or professional codes of ethics in any such way. I
guess we just travel in different sorts of circles.

Now here is a pair of interesting points:
1. You claim that test prep does little for scores, that prep is of low
validity. Well, look in the mirror: Tests have little validity for any
practical purposes to begin with. So, why do you hold test prep course
to higher standards than those for your industry? Corrolary: Let's ask
shops like Kaplan to respond to your accusation that they are a waste of
money. Then we will see you vs them and everybody pointing fingers at
one another.
2. Whether tests or test prep has any validity is irrelevant to the
point that all of this is simply a great big vacuum sweeper sucking up
dollars that should be in education. Schools should be putting money
into teaching, and parents should be putting their money into supporting
education, not throwing down a test prep rat-hole (assuming that is
valid).

Deanna, I never questioned your individual ethics so your stuff about
the Cayman accounts is irrelevant. I question your industry as a whole,
and I do see tens of millions of dollars going somewhere, and it is not
into education. I am sure some companies, within the limits that I of
course believe standardized testing is entirely unethical) are
reasonable ethical people. Not every company is Enron, but many are.

You have not made a case for value added of standardized testing as it
is being implemented to education. You have not made a case that your
tests predict anything more than rcaism. You have not made a case that
equalizing education funding across schools is less important than
putting those same dollars into tests. you have not made a case for what
you or your industry is doing to stop fools like Gray Davis from
implelmenting a single graduation test. You have not made a case for how
your standardized tests can be standardized in an clearly discriminatory
world. You have not made a case for how tests are anything more than
institutionalized racism. you have not made a case for how your tests do
not harm kids like my son, or even me for that matter in my educational
experience. You have not made a case for how your system does anything
other than pound "one right way" narrow mindedness into children, and
crush the creativity and divergence out of them. Your tests would have
had me fail, would have tracked me into a deadend. I am so glad I
refused to buy into your system, how dare you tell me I should have? How
dare you tell me your system is good for my son, or any other child like
him.

So, tell me.

Peace

Dan

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