Majority of California's 9th graders fail high school exit test
Mark Peters
test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
or with a lower passing level?
In article <3B21A5F1...@worldnet.att.net>, Melanie Click
<mjc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> ummmm, perhaps I am missing something here, but this is a high school EXIT
> exam. Why are any 9th graders expected to pass it? The sample questions I
> looked at on the math portion included algebra and geometry, classes
which most
> 9th graders have not even taken.
>
> BTW I have been reading this group for several months. I have four children,
> ages 7, 6 (as of tomorrow), 4, and 15 mo.
>
> Melanie
>
> Scott & Denise wrote:
>
> > From the San Francisco Chronicle:
> >
> > 'Abysmal' exit test results for 9th-graders: Most flunk if 70% is a
> > passing grade.
> >
> > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/06/07/MN109350.DTL
FaithHH1
Peters) writes:
>If this is a high school EXIT test, why did so many pass? Shouldn't the
>test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
>or with a lower passing level?
>
It's just another example of tests being misused and the scores being
misrepresented.
ClaySkye
#4
sf
haven't gotten any better since the change in ownership.
Is this test given in 9th grade to use as a baseline to compare later
with their scores in12th grade? Or is the test actually set at 8th or
9th grade competency levels and therefore something that they should
be able to pass by the end of 9th?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Sat, 09 Jun 2001 17:51:18 -0500, mpe...@mcs.com (Mark Peters)
wrote:
Teachermama
sf wrote in message <3b22d2aa...@news.pipeline.com>...
>I missed the point too. The Chronicle has horrible writers and they
>haven't gotten any better since the change in ownership.
>
>Is this test given in 9th grade to use as a baseline to compare later
>with their scores in12th grade? Or is the test actually set at 8th or
>9th grade competency levels and therefore something that they should
>be able to pass by the end of 9th?
Seems to me I recall reading that they could begin taking the test in 9th
grade and had to pass it before they could graduate High School. They still
need to complete the appropriate number of classes before they graduate,
even if they pass the test. The reason that 9th graders are taking it this
year is that this year's incoming freshmen are the first class who will be
required to pass the test before receiving diplomas.
Monsieur et Madame Vieuxbouc
Teachermama wrote:
> Seems to me I recall reading that they could begin taking the test in 9th
> grade and had to pass it before they could graduate High School. They still
> need to complete the appropriate number of classes before they graduate,
> even if they pass the test. The reason that 9th graders are taking it this
> year is that this year's incoming freshmen are the first class who will be
> required to pass the test before receiving diplomas.
So if this is the case, what difference does it make that the majority of 9th
graders can't pass the test? Another one of those *tempest in a tea pot*
issues raised by people who have no clue about what school is all about.
M.
--
****************************************
Marty and Doreen Weiss mart...@earthlink.net
Meet the Vieuxboucs:
Three cats, one dog, two wives and a lover.....
from Bolton
*****************************************
Cate Sarraille
"Mark Peters" <mpe...@mcs.com> wrote in message
news:mpeters-0906...@mpeters.pr.mcs.net...
> If this is a high school EXIT test, why did so many pass? Shouldn't the
> test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
> or with a lower passing level?
similar one in my local newspaper. First, you need to know that the Board
of Ed originally set the pass level at 70% without knowing how well students
did on the exam. Then, for a number of reasons, they lowered the level to
65%. The test is difficult, in that the standards measured are taught in
9th, 10th and 11th grade. Specifically, the Math test questions cover
Algebra, Geometry, statistics and probability....none of which are currently
required to graduate from a California High School.
According the article I read, the Califorinia High School Exit Exam (HSEE)
is the most rigourous exit exam in the US. It seems to me that it is being
taken on a trial run to see what the results are and, more importantly, IMO,
to see what the reaction is from parents, businesses and voters. Stay
tuned.
Cate
Cate Sarraille
"FaithHH1" <fait...@cs.comclayskye> wrote in message
news:20010609213118...@nso-ch.news.cs.com...
all 9th grade students would score, but not all 9th grade students took the
test, since it was voluntary. It's when you look at the breakdown of the
data that it really becomes alarming. Asians and white students have good
numbers, while Hispanics and African Americans have much lower scores.
Students who are second language speakers or are designated Special Ed are
even lower. The worst scores are from schools which are designated
underperforming....32% in Language Arts and 8% in Math. Bad news on the
doorstep.
Cate
Cate Sarraille
<sf> wrote in message news:3b22d2aa...@news.pipeline.com...
> I missed the point too. The Chronicle has horrible writers and they
> haven't gotten any better since the change in ownership.
subscription to the Chronicle lately and I was appalled at the quality of
the newspaper.
> Is this test given in 9th grade to use as a baseline to compare later
> with their scores in12th grade? Or is the test actually set at 8th or
> 9th grade competency levels and therefore something that they should
> be able to pass by the end of 9th?
not a baseline to compare with later scores. If a student passed, he or she
does not have to take it again. I don't understand why the state is
administering a high school exit exam to 9th graders. Seems like a
collossul waste of time and money to me. It took three days to administer
the test. In order for my school to administer the tests, students missed
instruction in their regular classes. Dumb and dumber.
Cate
Cate Sarraille
on information they have not yet been taught?
Cate
"Monsieur et Madame Vieuxbouc" <mart...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3B22EF7C...@earthlink.net...
Gary Schnabl
what the Wisconsin State Department of Public Instruction plans to do with
its announced plan of exit exams for middle schoolers? A couple of years
ago, I read somewhere (WSJ? or online perhaps) that the DPI was wavering
about the implementation of its exit testing plans after its own studies
indicated that over 20% of 8th graders in Wisconsin would fail the proposed
exit exams, which were targeted at less than 8th grade level. The DPI has
been rather quiet lately.
> From: mpe...@mcs.com (Mark Peters)
Herman Rubin
>I missed the point too. The Chronicle has horrible writers and they
>haven't gotten any better since the change in ownership.
>Is this test given in 9th grade to use as a baseline to compare later
>with their scores in12th grade? Or is the test actually set at 8th or
>9th grade competency levels and therefore something that they should
>be able to pass by the end of 9th?
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>On Sat, 09 Jun 2001 17:51:18 -0500, mpe...@mcs.com (Mark Peters)
>wrote:
>>If this is a high school EXIT test, why did so many pass? Shouldn't the
>>test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
>>or with a lower passing level?
IIRC, the test is a requirement for receiving a high school
diploma. It is set at a low level so that at least a large
proportion of the high school students can pass it on some
trial. The major requirement for high school graduation for
far too many years has been attendance at an appropriate
institution for the appropriate number of years, for those
who do not take an unusual route.
What is NEEDED for graduation is a good set of subject matter
examinations, taken under realistic conditions, with no
multiple choice questions, and set by subject matter scholars.
I cannot see these examinations as lasting less than a week.
They should be examinations requiring thinking and using what
is supposedly understood in new conditions.
It should be criteria like this which should be used for any
educational credential, not the accumulation of grades and
credits, not taking into account age, etc.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Herman Rubin
Cate Sarraille <sarr...@home.com> wrote:
>"Mark Peters" <mpe...@mcs.com> wrote in message
>news:mpeters-0906...@mpeters.pr.mcs.net...
>> If this is a high school EXIT test, why did so many pass? Shouldn't the
>> test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
>> or with a lower passing level?
>Interesting question. I didn't read the Chronicle article, but there was a
>similar one in my local newspaper. First, you need to know that the Board
>of Ed originally set the pass level at 70% without knowing how well students
>did on the exam. Then, for a number of reasons, they lowered the level to
>65%. The test is difficult, in that the standards measured are taught in
>9th, 10th and 11th grade. Specifically, the Math test questions cover
>Algebra, Geometry, statistics and probability....none of which are currently
>required to graduate from a California High School.
I doubt if if covers any of the important parts of these
subjects adequately. If they were covered well, I am
inclined to doubt that that high a proportion of high
school students, in California or anywhere else, could do a
reasonable job. This is from my experience as a college
teacher, in many places, of mathematics and statistics.
Almost all of those now going to college have had algebra
and geometry, and understand little of either. If we want
people to understand probability and statistics, we must
teach the important parts of algebra in elementary school,
and teach the concepts, rather than the computational
formulas. I have had prospective high school teachers in
probability classes, and frankly, I would prefer that they
not teach at all.
>According the article I read, the Califorinia High School Exit Exam (HSEE)
>is the most rigourous exit exam in the US. It seems to me that it is being
>taken on a trial run to see what the results are and, more importantly, IMO,
>to see what the reaction is from parents, businesses and voters. Stay
>tuned.
Use popular opinion, and leave out the judgment of the
subject matter scholars. This is what the educationists
have been doing since the 30s.
Monsieur et Madame Vieuxbouc
Herman Rubin wrote:
> Use popular opinion, and leave out the judgment of the
> subject matter scholars. This is what the educationists
> have been doing since the 30s.
Herman,
We educators have been arguing for YOUR viewpoint for all those years, and
for NOT leaving such matters in the hands of the politicians and NOT leaving it
to public opinion! Still, very few will listen and keep blaming us for what
goes on, all the while changing things to suit the political winds. It is NOT
the NEA. It is NOT the AFT. It is the public and political pundits who,
because they sat in a desk for 12 years, think they know what education is all
about. The result is what you see and complain about in your university
classes. If they would leave it to true educators then maybe students would
come out of the schools actually knowing something.
Marty
Mark Peters
I have been in the Chicago area for the last 36 years and for the
last 31 years lived in Naperville. The local news media does not cover
educational issues in Wisconsin. I am unable to help you.
Mark
In article <B748CFD3.25C2%badB...@badBadger.com>, Gary Schnabl
Scott & Denise
>
> If this is a high school EXIT test, why did so many pass? Shouldn't the
> test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
> or with a lower passing level?
This same issue was discussed in misc.education.home-school.christian
before this thread was crossposted to the other newsgroups. Since those
of you in the other newsgroups entered this conversation late, you
haven't had the benefit of seeing the original response to this
question.
You can see two sample tests made up of questions from the actual math
and English tests at http://www.cde.ca.gov/statetests/hsee/resource.html
I took a look at both tests. I was primarily interested in the math
test. According to the answer key on the sample math test, all of the
questions are written at the 6th, 7th and first year algebra levels. The
probability and geometry questions are all written at the 6th and 7th
grade levels. The algebra questions only make up 16% of the sample test,
so if the sample test is indicative of the actual test, it would be
possible to score over 80% on the test without answering any of the
algebra questions correctly. Given that it is a multiple choice test
with each question having four possible answers, anyone just guessing on
the test will answer 25% of the questions correctly. A student who is
working at the 7th grade level in math should be able to score 86% on
the sample test. (Answering the 6th and 7th grade level questions
correctly plus guessing 1/4 of the algebra questions correctly.)
All of the material in the sample test, except for the algebra
questions, is covered in Saxon 6/5, so it is theoretically possible for
an advanced student entering 6th grade to pass this test. I plan to give
the sample math test to my 11 year old daughter to see how well she
does. I expect her to score at least 70%, probably higher.
The question we should be asking is, if this test is written at the 8th
grade level with over 80% of the questions written at the 6th and 7th
grade levels, why did so few 9th graders pass?
Joni J Rathbun
On Sun, 10 Jun 2001, Scott & Denise wrote:
>
> The question we should be asking is, if this test is written at the 8th
> grade level with over 80% of the questions written at the 6th and 7th
> grade levels, why did so few 9th graders pass?
>
I would also ask some other questions... including where the children
received their education during the previous eight years, what the
mobility and transient rates were, how many students may be
behind because of entering school without English as their learning
language, and so on.
And when I implemented such a testing program that, in theory should
be aligned with state standards (curriculum and instruction), I'd
begin giving the test to the first group to come up through the system
under those particular standards.
sf
you said, passing the test doesn't mean the end of school. I guess
it's a litmus test for them. If they are weak in math... etc, they'd
better knuckle down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Sat, 9 Jun 2001 20:21:06 -0700, "Teachermama" <teach...@iwon.com>
wrote:
lous...@jps.net
that has been done to get the students ready for it is to make excuses and look
for reasons to delay the exam. I believe this is like going for a root cannel..
It sounds worse than it is if you have a good dentist or in this case teachers.
Get on with it take the consequences , find out where we are lacking and improve
on the problems. Hell the students realize they have had it easy for 12 years
under the self esteem programs. They are ready to take the test and
consequences. Are the teachers and parents?
Kleyle
>And when I implemented such a testing program that, in theory should
>be aligned with state standards (curriculum and instruction), I'd
>begin giving the test to the first group to come up through the system
>under those particular standards.
>
But that would defeat the purpose of testing. Wewant to show failure, not
success. How else can we sell the next panacea program like Open Court, et al.
As ever,
Herman Rubin
>In the 15 years the exit exam has be threatening on the horizon. The only thing
>that has been done to get the students ready for it is to make excuses and look
>for reasons to delay the exam. I believe this is like going for a root cannel..
>It sounds worse than it is if you have a good dentist or in this case teachers.
>Get on with it take the consequences , find out where we are lacking and improve
>on the problems. Hell the students realize they have had it easy for 12 years
>under the self esteem programs. They are ready to take the test and
>consequences. Are the teachers and parents?
Unless the self esteem programs are eradicated, and
students are given the opportunity to learn, not much will
be accomplished. There will be massive drill on what is
explicitly on the tests, and nothing else.
This IS happening. Some good school districts in New York
State have been pulling out of testing on the grounds that
it interferes with education.
What is needed is to put in a long (probably more than a
month long) examination for a diploma, with NO multiple
choice questions, and given under realistic conditions.
As I have stated often, it is only an inconvenience if
one does not know how to do arithmetic, or algebraic
manipulations, or to plug into formulas in probability.
But if one cannot formulate the problem, it is useless to
be able to calculate the solution. The next step would be
to know how to go about achieving the solution. We can
leave the actual crunching it out to computers, which can
do what we tell them to, no matter how stupid.
The above cannot be tested with multiple choice.
Along with this, we need to force educationists to let
those who can proceed faster do so. The only way to do
this is to make them pay if they do not. Then they will
scream for schools which teach, rather than imprison.
lous...@jps.net
Corinna Schultz
I think IB covers a wider range of subjects, and has higher standards
than most public schools do, so maybe they'd be too hard -- maybe accept
lower scores or something?
Corinna
Herman Rubin
Corinna Schultz <c...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>What about the IB (International Baccalaureate) tests? or the AP tests?
>I think IB covers a wider range of subjects, and has higher standards
>than most public schools do, so maybe they'd be too hard -- maybe accept
>lower scores or something?
>Corinna
I have not seen the IB tests, but the descriptions I
have seen of the program do not impress me. If they
are multiple choice tests, no matter how good the
program looks, they must omit what I consider to be
essential parts of the subject matter.
The AP tests are definitely not good. Many schools
have found that they do not measure anything important.
As for standards, if honest standards were invoked, very
few of the public schools would have a chance of being
classed as "barely acceptable".
Magi D. Shepley
tests in our public schools. Same with AP Exams.
Magi
Corinna Schultz wrote:
Remove all Space Cats to Email.
Samuel Lubell
noticed that on Sun, 10 Jun 2001 01:57:58 GMT, sf sent via passenger
pigeon:
>I missed the point too. The Chronicle has horrible writers and they
>haven't gotten any better since the change in ownership.
>
>Is this test given in 9th grade to use as a baseline to compare later
>with their scores in12th grade? Or is the test actually set at 8th or
>9th grade competency levels and therefore something that they should
>be able to pass by the end of 9th?
The test is set at the tenth grade level and included algebra and
some geometry. So cries of horror that so many ninth graders failed
are, at best, ill-informed.
Scott & Denise
> The test is set at the tenth grade level and included algebra and
> some geometry. So cries of horror that so many ninth graders failed
> are, at best, ill-informed.
I just took a look at some info about the test on their web site. The
English portion of the test is written at the 10th grade level. The Math
portion is written at the 8th grade level. The test only tests through
first year algebra. The geometry, statistics, etc are all 6th and 7th
grade level questions. They provide a sample of the math test on their
web site consisting of questions taken from the test. A pre-algebra
student should be able to pass the sample test, since over 80% of the
questions on the test are written at the 6th and 7th grade levels. Most
of the material on the sample test is covered in Saxon 7/6.
--Scott
Bob LeChevalier
>In the 15 years the exit exam has be threatening on the horizon. The only thing
>that has been done to get the students ready for it is to make excuses and look
>for reasons to delay the exam.
I rather doubt it.
>I believe this is like going for a root cannel..
>It sounds worse than it is if you have a good dentist or in this case teachers.
>Get on with it take the consequences, find out where we are lacking and improve
>on the problems.
I don't necessarily object to this, but that does not seem to be what the
article was about. It was moaning over the percentage of 9th graders that
did not pass the test, while ignoring the fact that many 9th graders have not
yet had the courses covered by the test. If the test is going to be required
for graduation, then I think that the worrying ought to be about the 12th
graders that haven't passed it in a couple of years, rather than the 9th
graders and the schools they attend (indeed the high schools they are
attending now have had them less than a year).
>Hell the students realize they have had it easy for 12 years
>under the self esteem programs.
Here is where you venture into nonsense. The 9th graders who are taking the
test have only been in school for 10 years, and they certainly have not been
celebrating the ease of their schooling since they were 2 or 3 years old. I
doubt that they were even aware that there would be a test in 9th grade until
a couple of years ago at most.
>They are ready to take the test
If they've flunked the test, as apparently many did, then obviously they are
not "ready to take the test". In addition, since the test was voluntary this
year, those who did not take the test probably cannot be assumed to be ready
for anything.
>and consequences.
There are NO consequences for a 9th grader failing the test. They have
several more chances and only need to pass it once.
>Are the teachers and parents?
Neither group is taking the test.
lojbab
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier
>Samuel Lubell wrote:
>
>> The test is set at the tenth grade level and included algebra and
>> some geometry. So cries of horror that so many ninth graders failed
>> are, at best, ill-informed.
>
>I just took a look at some info about the test on their web site. The
>English portion of the test is written at the 10th grade level. The Math
>portion is written at the 8th grade level. The test only tests through
>first year algebra.
Not all kids, especially the lower end, will have had Algebra by 8th grade.
>The geometry, statistics, etc are all 6th and 7th
>grade level questions. They provide a sample of the math test on their
>web site consisting of questions taken from the test. A pre-algebra
>student should be able to pass the sample test, since over 80% of the
>questions on the test are written at the 6th and 7th grade levels.
That is not necessarily true. A pre-Algebra student who would score 100% on
a test written at their level might score 80% on the test, but less than
perfect students will suffer a 20% penalty on their scores, and that doesn't
leave a lot of room before there is failure. (Students who have not taken
Algebra will tend not to be the top students).
This is a lot like TIMSS, where we tended to look bad because a significant
fraction of students at the higher grade levels have not taken the course
work needed to solve some of the problems.
sf
say they pass everything except math, would they just take the math
portion from then on or do they retake the entire test?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scott & Denise
>
> Are they exempted from taking the parts of the test they pass? Let's
> say they pass everything except math, would they just take the math
> portion from then on or do they retake the entire test?
The test consists of two parts. There is a math test and an English
test. If they pass either test, they are not required to take it again.
--Scott
Scott & Denise
>
> A pre-Algebra student who would score 100% on
> a test written at their level might score 80% on the test, but less than
> perfect students will suffer a 20% penalty on their scores, and that doesn't
> leave a lot of room before there is failure. (Students who have not taken
> Algebra will tend not to be the top students).
Fair enough. But since the test is multiple choice with 4 possible
answers for each question, someone who is blindly guessing will still
get 25% of the questions correct. This would make up for a less than
perfect score on the questions written on the 6th and 7th grade levels.
Since they only require 65% correct to pass the test, I would hope that
the average eighth grader could pass the test.
--Scott
Jim Wayne
news:3B265EEE...@coastlink.com...
Not quite. On a multiple choice test with four possible answers, the
average of all blind guessers will approach 25 % over time. Some blind
guessers may get all of the questions right, some none of them correct. It
is entirely possible that every single blind guesser in a given test
administration will miss every one of the items they guess on, or get every
one of them correct. Just as it is possible for a person to flip 25 heads
in a row.
It is not possible to say that a person who starts out behind will get 25 %
correct by blind chance, only that he MAY get 25 % correct. At least half
the incidences will probably be below 25%, perhaps half above. Since it
would be possible to get a 100 % by blind guessing, it would be likely that
for every person scoring above 25 % on the questions they guess blindly on,
there will be more people who score less than 25 %. After all, it would
take 3 zeros and one 100 to average 25 %. Or one 100 and one hundred 24's.
All of this supposes that the answers on the test are completely random. On
most multiple choice tests, there is a tendency for B or C to come up as
correct answers more often than A or D, unless the answers have been
randomized by machine. Students who have been taught this as a guessing
strategy are likely to guess more correct answers than students who have not
and guess in a truly random pattern.
All of this shows why multiple choice tests, while useful, are not the best
ways to measure student learning.
Jim Wayne
Scott & Denise
< excellent comments about multiple choice questions snipped >
> All of this shows why multiple choice tests, while useful, are not the best
> ways to measure student learning.
In my mind, the biggest problem with mulitple choice is that you show
the student the answer. The student only needs to select it from a short
list of possibilities. Often the correct answer can be determined
without totally working the problem.
There is a real art to coming up with distractors that will fool enough
people enough of the time to create a valid MC test. I have no doubt
that the creators of this test are skilled at writing such distractors
and that the test has been scientifically validated. But no matter how
carefully you design a multiple choice test, you still wind up showing
the students the answers.
--Scott
Magi D. Shepley
6/5.
Magi
Scott & Denise wrote:
Remove all Space Cats to Email.
Magi D. Shepley
do that all the time and rarely get 25% of anything correct. It could possibly be
a intelligent process in that they don't WANT to score even the 25%, but when I
have 10 or more kids doing that, I know its not.
Magi
Scott & Denise wrote:
Remove all Space Cats to Email.
Herman Rubin
This is another drawback of multiple choice tests; it is
possible to create such distractors that extremely minor
errors will produce them, or that those who memorized
procedures will pick one of them, when lacking such hints,
the problem could be worked.
fm
"Bob LeChevalier" <loj...@lojban.org> wrote in message
news:cf2cit4k6r7qunofg...@4ax.com...
Another lojbabism.
iow, "we only looked bad because we didn't even try to teach the children
the subjects, so why blame it on the schools or teachers?"
Don't you get tired of making that stupid argument?
The entire POINT is that we DID look bad because the schools DID fail to
teach 60 million American children things which no other TIMSS country's
teachers and schools failed to teach.
Our public school system "looked" bad because it IS bad.
John Knight
Jim Wayne
Another problem is that students who have a strong ability for divergent
thinking can often find ways in which a very close distracter COULD be
right. The difficulty is not only writing distracters that are not
immediately perceptible as wrong, but are also clearly and definitely wrong.
I also agree, however, that by showing students the answer, you make it very
easy for skilled "guessers." The only way to avoid this is to use "All of
the above are correct," followed by "none of the above are correct," on
every question. This means that every test should have at least five or six
choices. At some point, the complexity of the question itself begins to be
a problem for students, especially students in the lower grades.
Jim Wayne
Magi D. Shepley
Magi
fm wrote:
Remove all Space Cats to Email.
Robert Julson
that this may well be a teacher deficit.
"Mark Peters" <mpe...@mcs.com> wrote in message
news:mpeters-0906...@mpeters.pr.mcs.net...
> If this is a high school EXIT test, why did so many pass? Shouldn't the
> test be more difficult or with a higher passing level instead of easier
> or with a lower passing level?
>
>
> In article <3B21A5F1...@worldnet.att.net>, Melanie Click
> <mjc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > ummmm, perhaps I am missing something here, but this is a high school
EXIT
> > exam. Why are any 9th graders expected to pass it? The sample
questions I
> > looked at on the math portion included algebra and geometry, classes
> which most
> > 9th graders have not even taken.
> >
> > BTW I have been reading this group for several months. I have four
children,
> > ages 7, 6 (as of tomorrow), 4, and 15 mo.
> >
> > Melanie
> >
> > Scott & Denise wrote:
> >
> > > From the San Francisco Chronicle:
> > >
> > > 'Abysmal' exit test results for 9th-graders: Most flunk if 70% is a
> > > passing grade.
> > >
> > >
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/06/07/MN109350.DTL
Cate Sarraille
have to take it again.
Cate
<sf> wrote in message news:3b2649de...@news.pipeline.com...
Cate Sarraille
> >Samuel Lubell wrote:
> >
> >> The test is set at the tenth grade level and included algebra and
> >> some geometry. So cries of horror that so many ninth graders failed
> >> are, at best, ill-informed.
> >
> >I just took a look at some info about the test on their web site. The
> >English portion of the test is written at the 10th grade level. The Math
> >portion is written at the 8th grade level. The test only tests through
> >first year algebra.
>
> Not all kids, especially the lower end, will have had Algebra by 8th
grade.
enough Algebra to pass the test in 9th grade.
> >The geometry, statistics, etc are all 6th and 7th
> >grade level questions. They provide a sample of the math test on their
> >web site consisting of questions taken from the test. A pre-algebra
> >student should be able to pass the sample test, since over 80% of the
> >questions on the test are written at the 6th and 7th grade levels.
daughter's middle school, math classes are tracked. The upper level
students learn a vastly different curriculum than the lower level students.
You're basing your assesssment on a "sample" math test. I've seen the
"sample" and I've seen the actual test. The questions on the "sample" do
not reflect the range of questions on the actual test. Why? Because the Dept
of Ed does not want to give information to students, teachers or parents
which would enable a student to prepare for the HSEE.
Cate
Cate Sarraille
"Scott & Denise" <sbr...@coastlink.com> wrote in message
news:3B265EEE...@coastlink.com...
question, look at the possible answers and eliminate those which are
obviously wrong. In order to do so, they must be able to understand the
question, formulate a number of possible responses and choose an answer
based on logic. If a student is confronted with a test they do not
understand, they are more than likely to use the Abracadabra pattern, the
ABBA DABBA DOO pattern, or the C and H pattern. In all of these cases, a
student has a less than 25% chance of getting the questions correct.
Cate
Cate Sarraille
> Jim Wayne wrote:
>
> < excellent comments about multiple choice questions snipped >
>
> > All of this shows why multiple choice tests, while useful, are not the
best
> > ways to measure student learning.
>
> In my mind, the biggest problem with mulitple choice is that you show
> the student the answer. The student only needs to select it from a short
> list of possibilities. Often the correct answer can be determined
> without totally working the problem.
knows that answers can be eliminated. Students with above average test
taking skills know that you can eliminate the wrong answers without working
out the problem. Those with average or below average test taking skills do
not know this. But to go back to Jim's response, multiple choice questions
do not truly measure a student's knowledge of the subject. It does not
prove mastery of the subject, it does not show critical thinking skills, nor
does it show that students are able to apply what they know.
Cate
Ray Drouillard
That is all sound statistical reasoning, but the 25% quoted will apply when
you average the scores of lots of students. I believe that the initial
concern in this thread was that a significent fraction of the students
taking the test were failing it.
Ray Drouillard
Ray Drouillard
> thinking can often find ways in which a very close distracter COULD be
> right. The difficulty is not only writing distracters that are not
> immediately perceptible as wrong, but are also clearly and definitely
wrong.
>
> I also agree, however, that by showing students the answer, you make it
very
> easy for skilled "guessers." The only way to avoid this is to use "All of
> the above are correct," followed by "none of the above are correct," on
> every question. This means that every test should have at least five or
six
> choices. At some point, the complexity of the question itself begins to
be
> a problem for students, especially students in the lower grades.
I remember saving time in my Professional Engineering exam by looking at the
form of the answers, and picking the one that had the correct form. In
other words, I would look for the answer that was a third-degree polynomial
if that is the form that would be created by the equation that I was
supposed to solve. I never bothered to solve the equation.
On the other hand, I would not have been able to predict the form of the
answer if I COULD NOT solve the equation, or if I had not solved enough of
them in the past.
Test-taking in itself is a skill, and learning that skill will skew the
results of your tests upwards, while failing to learn that skill will cause
you to appear to have less skill (in the subject being tested) than you
actually have.
Ray Drouillard
Laura Gonzalez
<Droui...@home.com> wrote:
>Test-taking in itself is a skill, and learning that skill will skew the
>results of your tests upwards, while failing to learn that skill will cause
>you to appear to have less skill (in the subject being tested) than you
>actually have.
I agree. I spend time going over test-taking strategies rather than
trying *specific* words and exact things I think will be on the test.
I find that this isn't well taught at my school, because they aren't
familiar with the simple strategies I present.
Laura Gonzalez
I heard that marking the same letter throughout the test *will* get
you about 25%, but random markings are unpredictable. ??
Laura Gonzalez
>concern in this thread was that a significent fraction of the students
>taking the test were failing it.
I'm jumping in on this late, but is the fact that 9th graders are
failing a test that is normed at late 10th grade not very surprising?
Jim Wayne
news:4bvditkjqtuash5t3...@4ax.com...
If the test has been truly randomized, there will tend to be an equal number
of each answer, if the test is long enough. So that strategy will get you
near a 25 % score. If the test is not truly random, then it may give you
less (or more).
If you randomize your answers on a truly random test, you have a 1-in-four
chance of being right on each question. Since chance has no memory, every
question in effect becomes a new opportunity to be right or wrong.
An important point is that these percentages only work out for a very large
number of testers over a very long test. Any individual guesser cannot
count on getting any particular percentage of guessed answers right, if he
chooses randomly. The test would have to be extremely long (hundreds or
thousands of questions) for the law of averages to work out for a single
student in that case. Even then, it is not assured: chance has no memory,
as noted above.
On the other hand, as other posters (and I) have pointed out, there are
strategies that can boost a guesser's chance above randomness, if they are
known and followed.
So when one uses multiple choice questions, a high score may indicate:
1. the student knew the material very well
2. the student knew the some of the material, but also used a good guessing
strategy and was moderately lucky
3. the student did not know the material, used a good guessing strategy, and
was very lucky
4. the student did not know the material, did not use a good guessing
strategy, and was extremely lucky
Please note that only one of these cases (number 1) represents what we
expect the score to show.
A bad score on the test may indicate:
1. the student did not know the material, did not use a good guessing
strategy, and was unlucky
2. the student did not know the material, used a good guessing strategy, and
was very unlucky
3. the student knew some of the material, used a bad guessing strategy and
was unlucky
4. the student knew some of the material, used a good guessing strategy and
was very unlucky
5. the student is a divergent thinker, knew the material, but the test
questions permitted him to construct rationales for more than one answer,
and was unlucky
6. the student was sick or distracted and was unlucky
Please note that the only common factor in all these items is luck. One
wonders if that is what we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on
high-stakes testing for. Only two of the six possibilities (numbers 1 and
2) include the factor most of us expect when we hear that a child has made a
bad score.
Jim Wayne
Scott & Denise
>
> I'm jumping in on this late, but is the fact that 9th graders are
> failing a test that is normed at late 10th grade not very surprising?
If you will read through the thread, you will see that this is the issue
we have been discussing.
It has been my contention that these 9th graders should have passed the
math test with flying colors. The math test is normed at the 8th grade
level. Most of the questions are 6th and 7th grade material. If the
sample test on their website is indicative of the actual test, anyone
who can do 7th grade math and is an average guesser (able to guess 25%
of unknown answers correctly) should score over 80% on the test.
--Scott
Scott & Denise
> You're assuming that someone who is guessing blindly will read over the
> question, look at the possible answers and eliminate those which are
> obviously wrong. In order to do so, they must be able to understand the
> question, formulate a number of possible responses and choose an answer
> based on logic. If a student is confronted with a test they do not
> understand, they are more than likely to use the Abracadabra pattern, the
> ABBA DABBA DOO pattern, or the C and H pattern. In all of these cases, a
> student has a less than 25% chance of getting the questions correct.
No. I am assuming that if I am given four choices and have to pick a
particular one, I have a one in four chance of selecting the right one.
--Scott
Scott & Denise
> All 6th and 7th grade questions? Based on what curriculum?
Based on the information given in the answer key on the sample test. All
of the material in the sample test which the answer key indicates is 6th
or 7th grade material is covered in Saxon 7/6.
> At my
> daughter's middle school, math classes are tracked. The upper level
> students learn a vastly different curriculum than the lower level students.
> You're basing your assesssment on a "sample" math test.
The sample test is made up of questions taken from the actual test.
> I've seen the
> "sample" and I've seen the actual test. The questions on the "sample" do
> not reflect the range of questions on the actual test.
Just because I am curious, how was it that you were able to see the
actual test? I thought that was shown to nobody, except the students
taking the test. If you have seen the actual test, then you are in a
better position to comment on it that the rest of us.
--Scott
Scott & Denise
>
> Could you kindly make up your mind, Scott? Last time, you said it was Saxon
> 6/5.
Last time I was mistaken. It is Saxon 7/6.
--Scott
Corinna Schultz
> Herman Rubin wrote:
>
> I have not seen the IB tests, but the descriptions I
> have seen of the program do not impress me. If they
> are multiple choice tests, no matter how good the
> program looks, they must omit what I consider to be
> essential parts of the subject matter.
>
I took a couple of them in high school (Physics, English, and Spanish)
and as I recall, the English had an essay component, the Spanish had a
major oral component, and the Physics, while multiple choice, asked
questions which were more challenging than the AP Calculus exam I took
the previous year. The AP American History exam had written questions,
not just multiple choice, but overall, the AP exams were much easier
than the IB exams I took (or maybe it was just senioritis and I didn't
study as much my senior year :) )
I agree, though, that multiple choice tests aren't worth much (but I
think that if they all have none of the above, and all of the above or
some of the above as choices they are much better).
As a homeschooler, I know whether my child knows something, so I don't
need a test...
--
Recycled Books & Miscellanea on Ebay
Educational, natural living, religion, and more...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/swansnow
Joni J Rathbun
On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Corinna Schultz wrote:
> As a homeschooler, I know whether my child knows something, so I don't
> need a test...
In some areas aren't homeschoolers required to deal with state testing
and such??
Scott & Denise
> In some areas aren't homeschoolers required to deal with state testing
> and such??
Some states require it; others don't.
--Scott
FaithHH1
<sbr...@coastlink.com> writes:
Are you sure you're not mistaken again?
ClaySkye
#4
FaithHH1
As a teacher I know whether or not my students know something without having to
give the standardized test, also. All 36 of them. That's not the point of
standardized tests, is it?
ClaySkye
#4
FaithHH1
<sbr...@coastlink.com> writes:
And that chance begins again with each question. It doesn't equal 25% on the
entire test.
ClaySkye
#4
FaithHH1
<sbr...@coastlink.com> writes:
>Cate Sarraille wrote:
>
>> All 6th and 7th grade questions? Based on what curriculum?
>
>Based on the information given in the answer key on the sample test. All
>of the material in the sample test which the answer key indicates is 6th
>or 7th grade material is covered in Saxon 7/6.
>
>> At my
>> daughter's middle school, math classes are tracked. The upper level
>> students learn a vastly different curriculum than the lower level students.
>> You're basing your assesssment on a "sample" math test.
>
>The sample test is made up of questions taken from the actual test.
Sample tests are rarely made up of actual test questions. It can compromise
the entire test. Sometimes one or two questions are taken from the actual
test, but no more. Can all test question levels be measured by a few? How was
the sample you saw chosen? Were they randomly generated or picked from the
test by someone trying to prove a point? Generally, standardized test
questions go from too easy to too hard to get an accurate measurement.
>> I've seen the
>> "sample" and I've seen the actual test. The questions on the "sample" do
>> not reflect the range of questions on the actual test.
>
>
>Just because I am curious, how was it that you were able to see the
>actual test? I thought that was shown to nobody, except the students
>taking the test. If you have seen the actual test, then you are in a
>better position to comment on it that the rest of us.
Teachers who give the test see the test. The SAT9 sample tests are very little
like the actual test in many ways.
ClaySkye
#4
FaithHH1
<sbr...@coastlink.com> writes:
I have to wonder how familiar you are with California standards and how much
they have changed over the last few years. Especially in math. I am now
teaching what was fifth and sixth grade standards to fourth graders. If you
contend (which I have read contrary to, by the way) that the test is at 8th
grade level, then are you giving the students time to adjust to the new
standards? It will take years to make up the void that was jumped over in
standards. Basically, these tests are setting up the student to fail. There
is no reason to think that 9th graders SHOULD have passed this test. That is,
unless you are biased against public education and looking for an excuse.
ClaySkye
#4
fm
Absolutely, positively not. America's public schools don't even know what
the word means. If you knew what it meant, you wouldn't need to ask that
question, because you would already know that a statistical zero percent of
American 12th grade girls were able to answer the questions about
probability and statistics--and many other TIMSS questions.
http://fathersmanifesto.com/timss.htm
John Knight
"Magi D. Shepley" <ma...@catsincyberspace.net> wrote in message
news:3B2695C3...@concentric.net...
Mark Peters
of the students passed the test while at other schools very few students
passed the test. Perhaps, we should wait until next year when the students
are 10th graders and see what happens on the second time for the test. The
students and the schools will have had a year to prepare for the test.
In article <20010613161913...@nso-md.news.cs.com>,
Magi D. Shepley
was, as Ray once put it, snide and completely sarcastic. I've read your web
page, and your "graphs" mean even less than the other TRASH there.
Magi
DeeAnne Doseman-Flaws
Hi all,
Here is a little perspective for non-California people. The
8th grade level is now Algebra I, not 8th grade pre-algebra as it was
for most of us when we were in school.
DeeAnne Flaws
DeeAnne Doseman-Flaws
deea...@deltanet.com deea...@deeannef.com
http://www.deeannef.com
http://users.deltanet.com/~deeannef
"The two most abundant things in the
universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
Harlan Ellison
Magi D. Shepley
the course by their teachers, and take an assessment test. Many of them make
it, all the 8th grade teams have an Algebra teacher who also teaches the
pre-Algebra... except the team I'm on, and ALL of our 8th graders take the
Algebra course.
Magi
DeeAnne Doseman-Flaws wrote:
Remove all Space Cats to Email.
fm
backfired on you, did't it?
Whatever you hoped to accomplish by it didn't work, did it?
Did you, by any remote possibility, attend a public school close by, like in
the US? Is this the problem? Are you one of them thar public school
graduates who "think" that "numbers mean nothing, absolutely nothing"? Or
do you prefer the little "you can prove anything with statistics" Pavolvian
Dog response, instead? Is this as deep into a discussion of public
education as you can get?
Are you a--"feminist"??
John Knight
"Magi D. Shepley" <ma...@catsincyberspace.net> wrote in message
news:3B281773...@concentric.net...
Magi D. Shepley
fm wrote:
> Well, then, your "snide and completey sarcastic" question completely
> backfired on you, did't it?
Nope. You fell right into it. Hook, line and sinker. Now if I could only get
my hook out of your mouth.
> Whatever you hoped to accomplish by it didn't work, did it?
Yep, it did. I got a predictable response from you TWICE in less than 24 hours
(by the time stamps on my server).
> Did you, by any remote possibility, attend a public school close by, like in
> the US?
I did... and I'm proud of the fact.
> Is this the problem?
Only for you, apparently.
> Are you one of them thar public school
> graduates who "think" that "numbers mean nothing, absolutely nothing"?
No... Numbers mean something. YOUR statistics which are totally, utterly hype
and don't match very much and take very few variables into account mean nothing.
> Or do you prefer the little "you can prove anything with statistics" Pavolvian
>
> Dog response, instead?
I don't prefer it, but you seem bound and determined to prove that its true!
> Is this as deep into a discussion of public education as you can get?
No, but you can't handle a deep discussion that disagrees with your pet
theories.
> Are you a--"feminist"??
Oooooo! Gds forbid that I might be one of those. By your definition, since I'm
a female that works, has no interest in being barefoot and pregnant, and don't
think I'm a second-class citizen... and that not all the problems we have in
this country come from giving women the right to vote, probably. Most people
would hardly consider me such though.
Donna Metler
explanation of your credentials, and blast public schools simultaneously.
Not if you want to appear knowledgable, instead of looking like a fool.
Of course, anyone who uses a test taken by a small subset to generalize to
the whole is asking to look a bit foolish.
And, yes, by your definitions, I'm a feminist. I am an educated, working
woman who believes women are people. I'm also a reasonably conservative
Southern Baptist.
"Magi D. Shepley" <ma...@catsincyberspace.net> wrote in message
news:3B289053...@concentric.net...
Joni J Rathbun
Not as far as I know.
Joni J Rathbun
On Thu, 14 Jun 2001, fm wrote:
>
> Did you, by any remote possibility, attend a public school close by, like in
> the US? Is this the problem? Are you one of them thar public school
> graduates who "think" that "numbers mean nothing, absolutely nothing"? Or
> do you prefer the little "you can prove anything with statistics" Pavolvian
> Dog response, instead? Is this as deep into a discussion of public
> education as you can get?
I nominate this as post of the week. W couldn't have said it
better.
fm
"Jim Wayne" <jhw...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:tid02k2...@corp.supernews.com...
> "Scott & Denise" <sbr...@coastlink.com> wrote in message
> news:3B265EEE...@coastlink.com...
> > Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> > >
> > > A pre-Algebra student who would score 100% on
> > > a test written at their level might score 80% on the test, but less
than
> > > perfect students will suffer a 20% penalty on their scores, and that
> doesn't
> > > leave a lot of room before there is failure. (Students who have not
> taken
> > > Algebra will tend not to be the top students).
> >
> > answers for each question, someone who is blindly guessing will still
> > get 25% of the questions correct. This would make up for a less than
> > perfect score on the questions written on the 6th and 7th grade levels.
> > Since they only require 65% correct to pass the test, I would hope that
> > the average eighth grader could pass the test.
> >
> > --Scott
>
> Not quite. On a multiple choice test with four possible answers, the
> average of all blind guessers will approach 25 % over time. Some blind
> guessers may get all of the questions right, some none of them correct.
It
> is entirely possible that every single blind guesser in a given test
> administration will miss every one of the items they guess on, or get
every
> one of them correct. Just as it is possible for a person to flip 25 heads
> in a row.
This is not quite correct. If everyone just guessed on 20 multiple choice
questions with 4 possible answers, then 1 of 315 students will get them all
wrong, but only 1 of every 1.1 trillion students will get them all right.
iow, 3.5 billion times as many students will get them all wrong as will get
them all right. 1 of 18 students will get half of them wrong, but only 1 of
1,048,576 will get half of them right--a ratio of 1:59,049. One quarter of
the students will get a quarter of them wrong, but only 1 of 1,024 students
will get a quarter of them right--a ratio of 1:243.
You are correct that the average will be 25% right and 75% wrong, for a
ratio of 1:3, but it's impossible that "every single blind guesser in a
given test administration will miss every one of the items they guess on".
The probability in the above case would be one student out of every 315 gets
them all wrong.
>
> It is not possible to say that a person who starts out behind will get 25
%
> correct by blind chance, only that he MAY get 25 % correct. At least half
> the incidences will probably be below 25%, perhaps half above. Since it
> would be possible to get a 100 % by blind guessing, it would be likely
that
> for every person scoring above 25 % on the questions they guess blindly
on,
> there will be more people who score less than 25 %. After all, it would
> take 3 zeros and one 100 to average 25 %. Or one 100 and one hundred
24's.
Except that you're 3.5 billion times more likely to get them all wrong than
you are to get them all right. This skews the distribution curve quite a
bit );
Rather than saying that he "will get 25 % correct " or "he MAY get 25 %
correct", it would be more accurate to say that "the probability is that he
will get 25% correct". This is obviously the most likely result, with the
probability that he will get them all right being 1 out of 1.1 trillion or
that he will get them all wrong being 1 out of 315.
>
> All of this supposes that the answers on the test are completely random.
On
> most multiple choice tests, there is a tendency for B or C to come up as
> correct answers more often than A or D, unless the answers have been
> randomized by machine. Students who have been taught this as a guessing
> strategy are likely to guess more correct answers than students who have
not
> and guess in a truly random pattern.
>
> All of this shows why multiple choice tests, while useful, are not the
best
> ways to measure student learning.
>
> Jim Wayne
Yes, and it gets even worse when the distribution curves of student scores
don't take into account that as much as 25% of the score could be due to
pure guesses. The irony is that some of our scores on TIMSS were actually
lower than if our students had just guessed. This is a bit hard to explain.
It would seem that you would have to know enough about the questions to
purposely answer them wrong. This was a consistent pattern, not just an
isolated case.
Another problem with the way many of these standardized tests are scored is
that there is a 200 point base score (just signing your name is worth 200
points), noise level questions which don't even address the skill being
measured, and memorization questions which aren't necessary. If someone can
solve the problems, then clearly they remembered the principles, so why
cover this twice? All of this tends to degrade the test results.
http://fathersmanifesto.com/timss.htm
John Knight
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Truer words ...
--
Copyright j...@research.att.com 2001, all rights reserved, except transmission
by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be included. Any
use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in and by this
article and any inclusion in print or other media are specifically prohibited.
fm
graduates scored dead last in 17 of 34 TIMSS subjects, out of 27 nations
which took this test, would you mind too terribly much why you're "proud of
the fact"? Inquiring minds need to know.
http://fathersmanifesto.com/timss.htm
When you say "YOUR statistics which are totally, utterly hype and don't
match very much and take very few variables into account mean nothing", you
are not saying very much about what you disagree with, wouldn't you say?
Can't you be more specific than that?
No? Do you know why you can't be more specific? We do. All we have to do
to understand why you don't and can't understand a single page is read the
TIMSS scores for American 12th grade girls. While our boys did VERY
poorly--our girls did even worse, if you can imagine that. What this means
is that, unless there is some way our 12th grade girls get one heckuva
lesson in math and science since high school, then you have no hope of
comprehending even one page, much less critiquing it. ergo, we will presume
that you are merely hurling epithets because that's all you are capable of.
However--we are more than willing to address any particular item that you
believe is in error. In fact, you will get a Dewey Button and a free
lobster dinner if you can point out just one error.
> > Are you a--"feminist"??
>
> Oooooo! Gds forbid that I might be one of those
If you are a feminist, we demand that you be summarily fired, immediately,
because we hold you directly responsible for this travesty in American
education.
This is no joke. Your actions are beyond criminal.
Just to set the record straight, feminism is the lie that the American woman
is the owner of two thirds of the wealth in the nation which once had the
world's highest incomes, less than 6% of workplace fatalities, one twentieth
of prison inmates but four fifths of child murderers, custodian of nine
tenths of the children of divorce, a super-citizen through affirmative
action and equal protection, 80% of federal beneficiaries but a net
non-taxpayer; & a murder or suicide victim one fifth as often, one
thousandth as likely to be a war casualty, lives 7 years longer, and 11%
more of the vote, than men; but is "discriminated against".
John Knight
"Magi D. Shepley" <ma...@catsincyberspace.net> wrote in message
news:3B289053...@concentric.net...
Herman Rubin
Alberto Moreira <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote:
>"fm" <j.w.k...@usa.net> said:
>>iow, "we only looked bad because we didn't even try to teach the children
>>the subjects, so why blame it on the schools or teachers?"
>>Don't you get tired of making that stupid argument?
>The argument is far from stupid. First, is there a point in teaching
>the subject ? Does it fit within the global educational frame ? And if
>not, what's the point in testing ?
I look at things from several different perspectives, and
I not only see a failure to teach subjects, but even an
active attempt to keep people from learning.
>I don't see how pissing contests can help.
>>The entire POINT is that we DID look bad because the schools DID fail to
>>teach 60 million American children things which no other TIMSS country's
>>teachers and schools failed to teach.
>And given that this country is well in front of science and
>technology, maybe there is a point in not teaching the stuff ? Maybe
>the emphasis in this highly evolved science and technology society is
>not the same as what fits Lower Slobovia ?
It is well in front, but only because it has brought in
a large number of foreigners. Our science is in danger
of being stifled by the government, having had research
funding eliminated by government largesse, which came
very close to being turned off a few years ago. This
danger was foreseen more than a half century ago.
>>Our public school system "looked" bad because it IS bad.
>It isn't worse than any other I've had contact with. Criticism out of
>context doesn't help anything.
It is worse than many others whose products I have seen.
It is not unique in stifling learning, however.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
FaithHH1
<j.w.k...@usa.net> writes:
>Well, then, your "snide and completey sarcastic" question completely
>backfired on you, did't it?
>
>Whatever you hoped to accomplish by it didn't work, did it?
It worked for those of us who took it for what it was and it didn't work
for...well...you.
ClaySkye
#4
Ray Drouillard
> This is not quite correct. If everyone just guessed on 20 multiple choice
> questions with 4 possible answers, then 1 of 315 students will get them
all
> wrong, but only 1 of every 1.1 trillion students will get them all right.
> iow, 3.5 billion times as many students will get them all wrong as will
get
> them all right.
> 1 of 18 students will get half of them wrong, but only 1 of
> 1,048,576 will get half of them right--a ratio of 1:59,049.
Um... that doesn't follow. If you get half of the wrong, you'll get the
other half right.
In other words, you'll have EXACTLY the same number of stucents getting half
of them wrong as right :)
Ray Drouillard
Bob LeChevalier
>"Bob LeChevalier" <loj...@lojban.org> wrote in message
>news:cf2cit4k6r7qunofg...@4ax.com...
>Another lojbabism.
So in return I get another nincompoopism.
>iow, "we only looked bad because we didn't even try to teach the children
>the subjects, so why blame it on the schools or teachers?"
>
>Don't you get tired of making that stupid argument?
Why not? You've never come up with a sane response.
>The entire POINT is that we DID look bad because the schools DID fail to
>teach 60 million American children things which no other TIMSS country's
>teachers and schools failed to teach.
In other words, the schools did what "we the people" told them to do. We
didn't tell the schools to teach all kids calculus, and indeed, the school
board that tried to do so would probably be thrown out of office, so of
course not all our kids learn calculus.
>Our public school system "looked" bad because it IS bad.
When YOU say that, it is a compliment.
lojbab
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier
>> A pre-Algebra student who would score 100% on
>> a test written at their level might score 80% on the test, but less than
>> perfect students will suffer a 20% penalty on their scores, and that doesn't
>> leave a lot of room before there is failure. (Students who have not taken
>> Algebra will tend not to be the top students).
>
>answers for each question, someone who is blindly guessing will still
>get 25% of the questions correct.
Many standardized tests have a correction for guessing that gives a zero
score for truly random guessing, though I'm not sure if that is true for the
CA test.
>This would make up for a less than
>perfect score on the questions written on the 6th and 7th grade levels.
>Since they only require 65% correct to pass the test, I would hope that
>the average eighth grader could pass the test.
If a 65% is a D-, as it is here, then a kid could graduate 8th grade with 65%
in all in his classes, so that his TOP score on a standards test might not be
higher than 65%. If you factor in the 20% penalty, and the fact that every
kid forgets some of the stuff that they learn each grade and never use (and
the low grade types will tend to forget more), I see no reason to expect an
average kid to pass such a test. An above-average kid, maybe
lojbab.
Bob LeChevalier
>> I'm jumping in on this late, but is the fact that 9th graders are
>> failing a test that is normed at late 10th grade not very surprising?
>
>If you will read through the thread, you will see that this is the issue
>we have been discussing.
>
>It has been my contention that these 9th graders should have passed the
>level.
What exactly do you mean by this. The usual definition of norming would mean
that one would expect 50% of 8th graders to score above the median and 50% to
score below the median, whatever that median is. Usually a normed test is
designed with a variety of question levels so that meaningfully different
scores will arise between that median score and 4 standard deviations above
the mean or 4 standard deviations below the mean (these correspond to the 800
and 200 levels on an SAT test with median 500). This in turn means that a
top score on an 8th grade test would be likely only to a kid working at the
college level. 9th graders who have taken additional math would typically
get more than the median correct, but nowhere near 800. (but if 9th graders
are not required to take math in California, one can easily imagine that a
9th grader would do WORSE on the test than an 8th grader).
Since the test scores have been reported as percentages correct, rather than
as normed scores, I am inclined to doubt your claim regarding the norming.
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier
>"Jim Wayne" <jhw...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>news:tid02k2...@corp.supernews.com...
>> "Scott & Denise" <sbr...@coastlink.com> wrote in message
>> news:3B265EEE...@coastlink.com...
>> > Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> > > A pre-Algebra student who would score 100% on
>> > > a test written at their level might score 80% on the test, but less than
>> > > perfect students will suffer a 20% penalty on their scores, and that doesn't
>> > > leave a lot of room before there is failure. (Students who have not taken
>> > > Algebra will tend not to be the top students).
>> >
>> > Fair enough. But since the test is multiple choice with 4 possible
>> > answers for each question, someone who is blindly guessing will still
>> > get 25% of the questions correct. This would make up for a less than
>> > perfect score on the questions written on the 6th and 7th grade levels.
>> > Since they only require 65% correct to pass the test, I would hope that
>> > the average eighth grader could pass the test.
>>
>> average of all blind guessers will approach 25 % over time. Some blind
>> guessers may get all of the questions right, some none of them correct. It
>> is entirely possible that every single blind guesser in a given test
>> administration will miss every one of the items they guess on, or get every
>> one of them correct. Just as it is possible for a person to flip 25 heads
>> in a row.
>
>This is not quite correct. If everyone just guessed on 20 multiple choice
>questions with 4 possible answers, then 1 of 315 students will get them all
>wrong, but only 1 of every 1.1 trillion students will get them all right.
>iow, 3.5 billion times as many students will get them all wrong as will get
>them all right. 1 of 18 students will get half of them wrong, but only 1 of
>1,048,576 will get half of them right--a ratio of 1:59,049.
Now common sense ought to tell you at this point that you have something
wrong, don't you think, since by definition anyone who has half the questions
wrong also has half the questions right. So if 1 in 18 has half the
questions wrong then that same 1 in 18 also has half the questions right.
But fm has no common sense.
>One quarter of
>the students will get a quarter of them wrong, but only 1 of 1,024 students
>will get a quarter of them right--a ratio of 1:243.
You are getting silly now. You are saying that by blind guessing, a quarter
of the students would get a 75% on the test.
>You are correct that the average will be 25% right and 75% wrong, for a
>ratio of 1:3, but it's impossible that "every single blind guesser in a
>given test administration will miss every one of the items they guess on".
It is not impossible. Just very unlikely.
>The probability in the above case would be one student out of every 315 gets
>them all wrong.
Yes, and the probability that 100 students would get them all wrong would be
quite a bit lower, but not zero.
>Yes, and it gets even worse when the distribution curves of student scores
>don't take into account that as much as 25% of the score could be due to
>pure guesses. The irony is that some of our scores on TIMSS were actually
>lower than if our students had just guessed.
Nope. Some questions had fewer than the random percentage getting the
correct answer, but TIMSS was specifically designed to test for
misunderstandings, and misunderstandings can indeed lead to answers from
non-guessers that are worse than random guessing.
>This is a bit hard to explain.
Not at all.
>It would seem that you would have to know enough about the questions to
>purposely answer them wrong.
No, it means you have to know enough to be caught by one of the traps put in
the questions to deliberately catch someone who understands imperfectly.
>This was a consistent pattern, not just an isolated case.
Not in any unusual way.
>Another problem with the way many of these standardized tests are scored is
>that there is a 200 point base score (just signing your name is worth 200
>points),
This reflects a misunderstanding of what a normed test score is. A 200 score
is NOT 200 points, but rather an indication that the student scored 4
deviations below the normed mean. Likewise, an 800 score, while the highest
score possible, does not necessarily mean that all questions were answered
correctly. Indeed, for a sufficiently difficult test, someone might miss
half the questions and still get a maximum score.
>noise level questions which don't even address the skill being
>measured, and memorization questions which aren't necessary. If someone can
>solve the problems, then clearly they remembered the principles, so why
>cover this twice?
Because someone who cannot solve the problems and yet CAN remember the
principles should rate a higher score than one who cannot do either.
> All of this tends to degrade the test results.
Nope. It means that the test scores can tell us things other than what is on
your agenda, and the test is not well suited to support your agenda. But
then, you weren't the one paying for the test.
fm
"Donna Metler" <nospam_...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:hN1W6.4269$9r1.4...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
> John, you don't seem to get it. You can't use public schools as an
> explanation of your credentials, and blast public schools simultaneously.
> Not if you want to appear knowledgable, instead of looking like a fool.
>
What does this paragraph mean? It makes no sense whatsoever. Who is using
"public schools as an explanation of [anyone's] credentials"?
> Of course, anyone who uses a test taken by a small subset to generalize to
> the whole is asking to look a bit foolish.
Of course anyone who doesn't have a clue about how accurate a credible
study of such a subset is would believe this statement. But if you had said
such a thing on the TIMSS test, you would have FLUNKED, because you are DEAD
WRONG.
You may never understand why--but that does not change the facts one bit.
>
> And, yes, by your definitions, I'm a feminist. I am an educated, working
> woman who believes women are people. I'm also a reasonably conservative
> Southern Baptist.
Didn't Southern Baptists used to be Christians? If so, then you can't be
both a feminist and a Southern Baptist, because they are mutually
exclusive. One of the little nigglies about Christianity is that adultery
is a sin, but feminists promote adultery as a *right*, all of them.
http://fathersmanifesto.com/adultery.htm
So which are you? A Christian? Or a feminist?
fm
"Alberto Moreira" <junk...@moreira.mv.com> wrote in message
news:3b2bb3b4...@news.mv.net...
> "fm" <j.w.k...@usa.net> said:
>
>
> >iow, "we only looked bad because we didn't even try to teach the children
> >the subjects, so why blame it on the schools or teachers?"
> >
> >Don't you get tired of making that stupid argument?
>
> The argument is far from stupid. First, is there a point in teaching
> the subject ? Does it fit within the global educational frame ? And if
> not, what's the point in testing ?
>
> I don't see how pissing contests can help.
>
> >The entire POINT is that we DID look bad because the schools DID fail to
> >teach 60 million American children things which no other TIMSS country's
> >teachers and schools failed to teach.
>
> And given that this country is well in front of science and
> technology, maybe there is a point in not teaching the stuff ? Maybe
> the emphasis in this highly evolved science and technology society is
> not the same as what fits Lower Slobovia ?
>
> >Our public school system "looked" bad because it IS bad.
>
> It isn't worse than any other I've had contact with. Criticism out of
> context doesn't help anything.
>
>
>
> Alberto.
>
This is a cop out. Just because there might be some worse schools in Mexico
or Buenos Aeros doesn't mean that we should try to emulate them.
When compared to the technological developments of Japan, we STINK, and
that's mostly if not exclusively because Japanese parents don't go running
around trying to justify a lousy education system. They TEACH their
children, which is why 80% of the top patent holders of OUR patents are
Japanese and less than 20% are Americans.
That technological lead that you think we have is HISTORY. There is no way
that we can expect to have people who can't even understand algebra, much
less calculus, retain any such technological lead. Most of the top engineers
and scientists in "American" high tech companies now are foreign born and
educated. Why? Because American companies don't like Americans? NO.
Because they must import them just to be able to compete.
Get your head out.
Our schools STINK, you know it, and these specious arguments won't anything
but prevent us from exploring all of the reasons why. There IS a reason,
and even YOU can understand what it is, eventually, given enough time.
John Knight
fm
Interesting that you didn't attempt to make the correction. Why is that?
To give you a head start, the probability of getting a four answer multiple
choice question correct is 1 out of 4, or .25. The probability of getting
it wrong is 3 out of 4, or .75.
With two questions: correct = .25 x .25 = .0625, wrong = .75 x .75 = .5625
To get all 20 questions correct = 9.1 x 10^-13, to get them all wrong =
.0032
>
> >One quarter of
> >the students will get a quarter of them wrong, but only 1 of 1,024
students
> >will get a quarter of them right--a ratio of 1:243.
>
> You are getting silly now. You are saying that by blind guessing, a
quarter
> of the students would get a 75% on the test.
>
That is the "range".
The actual expected distribution needs to be viewed graphically at
http://fathersmanifesto.com/califexittest.htm
> >You are correct that the average will be 25% right and 75% wrong, for a
> >ratio of 1:3, but it's impossible that "every single blind guesser in a
> >given test administration will miss every one of the items they guess
on".
>
> It is not impossible. Just very unlikely.
If it was a pure random guess and not based on any misinformation, then the
odds of just one student getting all of 30 questions wrong are one in 5,600
The odds of two students getting them all wrong are one in 31.4 million. If
there are 30 students, the odds of them all getting all of the questions
wrong are 1 in 2.8 times ten to the 112th power (1 in 2.8 x 10^112).
From a purely statistical point of view, that's not "impossible", but from a
practical point of view, it is.
>
> >The probability in the above case would be one student out of every 315
gets
> >them all wrong.
>
> Yes, and the probability that 100 students would get them all wrong would
be
> quite a bit lower, but not zero.
At 82 students, you run out of zeros in most programs. It is 1 out of 2.2 x
10^307.
>
>
> >Yes, and it gets even worse when the distribution curves of student
scores
> >don't take into account that as much as 25% of the score could be due to
> >pure guesses. The irony is that some of our scores on TIMSS were
actually
> >lower than if our students had just guessed.
>
> Nope. Some questions had fewer than the random percentage getting the
> correct answer, but TIMSS was specifically designed to test for
> misunderstandings, and misunderstandings can indeed lead to answers from
> non-guessers that are worse than random guessing.
Well, that's the point, isn't it? That's the most revealing thing about
TIMSS. This was true for so many questions that the only way this could
have happened is if our students were taught exactly the wrong things.
If you review the 12th grade questions, you might note that they were 8th
grade questions in this country not too long ago. For some of them, you
just couldn't get them wrong unless you had bad information to start with.
Our students not only couldn't solve the problem solving questions--they had
their basic facts wrong. Unless you want to argue that TIMSS isn't valid for
the US education system, which is an unacceptable argument, this failure
seems to have been created intentionally.
>
> >This is a bit hard to explain.
>
> Not at all.
>
> >It would seem that you would have to know enough about the questions to
> >purposely answer them wrong.
>
> No, it means you have to know enough to be caught by one of the traps put
in
> the questions to deliberately catch someone who understands imperfectly.
>
> >This was a consistent pattern, not just an isolated case.
>
> Not in any unusual way.
>
> >Another problem with the way many of these standardized tests are scored
is
> >that there is a 200 point base score (just signing your name is worth
200
> >points),
>
> This reflects a misunderstanding of what a normed test score is. A 200
score
> is NOT 200 points, but rather an indication that the student scored 4
> deviations below the normed mean. Likewise, an 800 score, while the
highest
> score possible, does not necessarily mean that all questions were answered
> correctly. Indeed, for a sufficiently difficult test, someone might miss
> half the questions and still get a maximum score.
The problem is that a TIMSS math score of 485 is equivalent to solving zero
of the math or physics problems. So when our girls scored 393 in Mechanics,
they weren't demonstrating just poor problem solving skills--they were
demonstrating that they have been seriously misinformed [read: taught the
WRONG things].
How can that happen by accident?
>
> >noise level questions which don't even address the skill being
> >measured, and memorization questions which aren't necessary. If someone
can
> >solve the problems, then clearly they remembered the principles, so why
> >cover this twice?
>
> Because someone who cannot solve the problems and yet CAN remember the
> principles should rate a higher score than one who cannot do either.
Why? If you remember something but can't do anything with it, what use is
the distinction in the score? It's a waste of time and money. It means
nothing and it obscures some other very important facts.
>
> > All of this tends to degrade the test results.
>
> Nope. It means that the test scores can tell us things other than what is
on
> your agenda, and the test is not well suited to support your agenda. But
> then, you weren't the one paying for the test.
>
> lojbab
The "agenda" is to get at the truth. The truth is that there's something
seriously wrong with our education system. TIMSS provided just a teeny
wheeny little peek into what it is. It also told us that most if not all of
the standardized test makers in this country have bent over backwards to
conceal what TIMSS revealed. Why? What have they got to gain by concealing
the evidence?
John Knight
Elmer Bataitis
> The truth is that there's something
> seriously wrong with our education system.
Say John, where did you get your education?
**********************************************************
Elmer Bataitis "Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!"
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884
Proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor,
the straight jacket of conventional thought.
**********************************************************
Herman Rubin
Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>"fm" <j.w.k...@usa.net> wrote:
>>"Bob LeChevalier" <loj...@lojban.org> wrote in message
>>news:cf2cit4k6r7qunofg...@4ax.com...
>>Another lojbabism.
>So in return I get another nincompoopism.
>>iow, "we only looked bad because we didn't even try to teach the children
>>the subjects, so why blame it on the schools or teachers?"
>>Don't you get tired of making that stupid argument?
>Why not? You've never come up with a sane response.
>>The entire POINT is that we DID look bad because the schools DID fail to
>>teach 60 million American children things which no other TIMSS country's
>>teachers and schools failed to teach.
>In other words, the schools did what "we the people" told them to do. We
>didn't tell the schools to teach all kids calculus, and indeed, the school
>board that tried to do so would probably be thrown out of office, so of
>course not all our kids learn calculus.
Did "we the people" tell the schools NOT to teach kids
who could learn more the additional material?
We are not going to succeed in teaching all enough to
take a reasonable college program. We MIGHT get back
to what we had before social adjustment if the educationists
could themselves accept that children are of different
abilities; the public would accept this, and at least
in a large number of places, allow big differences in
rates of progress.
Donna Metler
Advanced placement and honors classes to not be eliminated due to budget
problems, then, yes, the public has made a decision to limit education for
the best and brightest. The elected officials , who has repeately voted down
any tax increase to assist the local schools and has watched advanced
programs, most foreign language programs, and just about everything not
expressly mandated by the state standards just voted to spend $250 million
dollars to build an arena to attract an NBA team-who will pay no rent, pay
no taxes, and keep all revenues. Those of us who are pushing for a
referendum are regularly crucified in the press and by many members of the
community.
We have the schools we choose to pay for and demand. Until the taxpaying
public start demanding the full education that students deserve, we won't
get it, and our children will miss opportunities.
"Herman Rubin" <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message
news:9gdjis$22...@odds.stat.purdue.edu...
fm
"Donna Metler" <nospam_...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:k2uW6.8235$9r1.7...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
> When the county taxpayers vote down a tax increase which would have
allowed
> Advanced placement and honors classes to not be eliminated due to budget
> problems, then, yes, the public has made a decision to limit education for
> the best and brightest. The elected officials , who has repeately voted
down
> any tax increase to assist the local schools and has watched advanced
> programs, most foreign language programs, and just about everything not
> expressly mandated by the state standards just voted to spend $250 million
> dollars to build an arena to attract an NBA team-who will pay no rent,
pay
> no taxes, and keep all revenues. Those of us who are pushing for a
> referendum are regularly crucified in the press and by many members of the
> community.
>
> We have the schools we choose to pay for and demand. Until the taxpaying
> public start demanding the full education that students deserve, we won't
> get it, and our children will miss opportunities.
>
This is why women shouldn't vote.
You have been presented with the data which shows the EXACT opposite to be
true--the more money we spend for education, the worse the schools get.
You haven't contradicted this data. You haven't demonstrated that it's
false, nor have you provided a reference source which disputes it.
And now you act as if though you never even saw it. Why is that?
http://fathersmanifesto.com/educost.htm
John Knight
Scott & Denise
>
> Since the test scores have been reported as percentages correct, rather than
> as normed scores, I am inclined to doubt your claim regarding the norming.
"Normed" was a poor choice of words. I borrowed the word from Laura's
post rather than considering what the word actually means. What I should
have said is that the test consists of questions written at the 6th, 7th
and 8th grade levels.
--Scott
Ray Drouillard
"Elmer Bataitis" <elmerb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3B2A462C...@yahoo.com...
> fm wrote:
>
> > The truth is that there's something
> > seriously wrong with our education system.
>
> Say John, where did you get your education?
I love it! A bunch of teachers involved in a flame war :-)
(Yet another reason to keep my kids home)
Ray
Magi D. Shepley
during school hours, Ray. Its 11:45 pm where I am now... very much
outside of school hours.
Magi
Ray Drouillard wrote:
Remove all Space Cats to Email.
Joni J Rathbun
Don't you think you should do your homework
before making such rude comments? Maybe check
to see if the two people in the post to which
you responded are actually teachers?
(Hint: They are not.)
But thanks for keeping your kids at home.
The nut usually doesn't fall far from the
tree; and we have enough kids who don't do their
homework as it is.
racqu...@hvc.rr.com
>"Donna Metler" <nospam_...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>news:k2uW6.8235$9r1.7...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
>> When the county taxpayers vote down a tax increase which would have
>allowed
>> Advanced placement and honors classes to not be eliminated due to budget
>> problems, then, yes, the public has made a decision to limit education for
>> the best and brightest. The elected officials , who has repeately voted
>down
>> any tax increase to assist the local schools and has watched advanced
>> programs, most foreign language programs, and just about everything not
>> expressly mandated by the state standards just voted to spend $250 million
>> dollars to build an arena to attract an NBA team-who will pay no rent,
>pay
>> no taxes, and keep all revenues. Those of us who are pushing for a
>> referendum are regularly crucified in the press and by many members of the
>> community.
>>
>> We have the schools we choose to pay for and demand. Until the taxpaying
>> public start demanding the full education that students deserve, we won't
>> get it, and our children will miss opportunities.
>>
>This is why women shouldn't vote.
Nonresponsive comment.
>You have been presented with the data which shows the EXACT opposite to be
>true--the more money we spend for education, the worse the schools get.
What data "shows" is a function of the thoroughness of the observer's
analysis. Your conclusions are cursory, haphazard, and based upon
your personal prejudices. As such, they are useless.
>You haven't contradicted this data.
One doesn't have to contradict data to invalidate the conclusions
made on the basis of the data. She's successfully come up with a
clear case which contradicts your position, and has therefore
invalidated your generalization.
racqu...@hvc.rr.com
<Droui...@home.com> wrote:
>"Elmer Bataitis" <elmerb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:3B2A462C...@yahoo.com...
>> fm wrote:
>>
>> > The truth is that there's something
>> > seriously wrong with our education system.
>>
>> Say John, where did you get your education?
>
>I love it! A bunch of teachers involved in a flame war :-)
You apparently don't realize that everyone posting here isn't a
teacher, which is a bit odd given that YOU are posting here and are
not a teacher. Or did you think you were the only one?
>(Yet another reason to keep my kids home)
By all means keep them at home; no one here would think of denying you
the right to do so. I don't know why so many homeschoolers feel
called upon to justify their choice by attacking eveyone else's
choice? Just do what you want and pat yourself on the back in
private.
Joni J Rathbun
On 16 Jun 2001, Magi D. Shepley wrote:
> Wait... teachers aren't allowed to flame people? I'm not posting
> during school hours, Ray. Its 11:45 pm where I am now... very much
> outside of school hours.
You'll note, Magi, that the flaming folks in the post to which he
responded are not teachers. Never let facts get in the way.
Of course, I can't think of any reason why teachers shouldn't
be "allowed" to express their opinions as others do. I think
it's a good thing when teachers discuss and are involved with
the issues.
Joni J Rathbun
Keep in mind this person who flamed a flame with a flame is the same
person who recently said with regard to his respect for teachers:
"Unlike _____, I am unwilling to tar everyone with the same brush."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
alhu...@yahoo.com
wrote:
>> We have the schools we choose to pay for and demand. Until the
taxpaying
>> public start demanding the full education that students
deserve, we won't
>> get it, and our children will miss opportunities.
>
>
>This is why women shouldn't vote.
This is why chauvinists shouldn't post to k12.chat.teacher.
Chauvinist assholes tend to get barbecued beyond recognition by
women who don't much care if they're faulted for their nasty
tempers.
>You have been presented with the data which shows the EXACT
opposite to be
>true--the more money we spend for education, the worse the
schools get.
>
>You haven't contradicted this data. You haven't demonstrated
that it's
>false, nor have you provided a reference source which disputes
it.
>
>And now you act as if though you never even saw it. Why is
that?
>http://fathersmanifesto.com/educost.htm
>
>John Knight
Your reasoning isn't. Life is different today, as are the
demands and needs of schools. The information economy is a
reality and demands more highly skilled and trained minds than we
presently produce. Conversely, there is no living wage for
people who lack basic skills. We need schools that provide more
choices and give the brighter students more, not yesterday's
ideas and yesterday's methods and yesterday's prices.
J. Z. Al-Huriyeh
Ray Drouillard
"Joni J Rathbun" <jrat...@orednet.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.SUN.3.96.101061...@compass.oregonvos.net...
>
> On 16 Jun 2001, Magi D. Shepley wrote:
>
> > Wait... teachers aren't allowed to flame people? I'm not posting
> > during school hours, Ray. Its 11:45 pm where I am now... very much
> > outside of school hours.
>
> You'll note, Magi, that the flaming folks in the post to which he
> responded are not teachers. Never let facts get in the way.
I have mostly been lurking in this thread. There are three newsgroups
involved in this crossposted thread. I don't recognize any of the mehsc
regulars as the authors of the flames.
>
> Of course, I can't think of any reason why teachers shouldn't
> be "allowed" to express their opinions as others do. I think
> it's a good thing when teachers discuss and are involved with
> the issues.
Expressing opinions are fine. It's all the character assasination,
name-calling, and other behavior that I find interesting. There is a big
difference between attacking/rebuking an action and attacking a person.
In our family, name-calling, insulting, and similar behavior are strongly
discouraged - for children and adults alike. We let our kids know that such
behavior exists, but try to set good examples. They will come to understand
that adults act like that, but I don't want them to be in a position where
they have to "look up" to someone who acts like that.
It may be true that they don't act like that in a classroom, but we have
seen differently in the classroom where my son was taught.
It may be that people will but on their "best behavior" for the class, but
that should be more than a veneer. If the face displayed to the class
doesn't represent the true heart that's inside, the students will detect
this duplicity.
Mat 12:34b For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Mat 15:11 That which enters into the mouth doesn't defile the man; but that
which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man."
Mat 15:18 But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the
heart, and they defile the man.
We have very high standards for personal accountability and integrity. We
don't always live up to them, but it is in the attempt that we grow. When
we stumble, regret the mistake, and take steps to correct it, we teach our
kids to do the same.
If I am going to offer up my impressionable children to someone else for
training, I want that person to have high standards. If that is too much to
ask, then I won't ask.
Ray Drouillard
Ray Drouillard
<racqu...@hvc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3b2ad5d9....@news-server.hvc.rr.com...
> On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 02:53:08 GMT, "Ray Drouillard"
> <Droui...@home.com> wrote:
>
> >"Elmer Bataitis" <elmerb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >news:3B2A462C...@yahoo.com...
> >> fm wrote:
> >>
> >> > The truth is that there's something
> >> > seriously wrong with our education system.
> >>
> >> Say John, where did you get your education?
> >
> >I love it! A bunch of teachers involved in a flame war :-)
>
> You apparently don't realize that everyone posting here isn't a
> teacher, which is a bit odd given that YOU are posting here and are
> not a teacher. Or did you think you were the only one?
Let's see... involved in this crossposted thread are:
misc.education.home-school.christian
misc.education
alt.education
k12.chat.teacher
I see very few of the frequent posters of mehsc in the latter parts of this
thread, and I didn't see any of them doing any flaming.
>
> >(Yet another reason to keep my kids home)
>
> By all means keep them at home; no one here would think of denying you
> the right to do so. I don't know why so many homeschoolers feel
> called upon to justify their choice by attacking eveyone else's
> choice? Just do what you want and pat yourself on the back in
> private.
Where are you getting your data?
Have I attacked anyone else's choice?
Have I patted myself on the back?
All I did was to make an observation that supports my choice. Why do you
take offence to that?
Ray Drouillard