Read this. Otherwise the rest of this post won't make sense.
How would administering standardized tests to college students affect anything? We've already seen that it does little good in our public school system, and can hurt a teachers abilities to teach to a students needs, or to procure funding needed to HELP them pass the test.
Why must our "new adults" suffer this too? One of the most beautiful things about the college experience has always been being encouraged to learn in a way outside of the "little of everything" that is included in standardized tests that teacher teach to.
Where would the admiration of teachers who genuinely enrich the learning experience go? It is VERY hard to teach someone following a curriculum that can not be adjusted, or given exceptions for learning styles.
The depths of your knowlege and subjects you take have always varied from school to school. Would we be encouraging students to take "english composition" that will be on the test instead of "womens rights in the music of Martina McBride" or a class that would be more interesting and beneficial to the student?
As a college student myself, I can tell you... FINALS WEEK KILLS!!!! As a music student, I will submit myself to Juries-graded performances in front of professors who can hold me back if my instrumental proficiency is not as good as my academic knowlege.
Will you add "the college SAT and yearly testing to make sure you know everything the government says you should know" on TOP of that? Or will teachers no longer be allowed to administer finals that they have written specific to the material studied, that they feel is most practical?
There's enough controversy about standardized tests and whether they are damaging to minority students. If you have grown up in a household that does not use a lot of SAT words of COURSE you'll have a difficult time. For many of these students, making it to college is a source of great pride. They see themselves moving up. Will you push them down again with the same biased tests?
Who WOULD benefit from this program? My best guess is the company's that write and administer the tests. NOT the students. It would not help our failing education system. It would be sidestepping the REAL problem... and that is the failure of the government to adequately fund education and help provide opportunities for our nation and its youth to grow and learn, and the failure to ensure that they will have a future with non-outsourced jobs and a good standard of living.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Who owns these standardised tests? Who owns the remedial books and the material to be used. Frankly, the last I knew, Jeb Bush and other Bush family's and friends had stock in those same materials that the Bush plan uses in the current NCLB plan.
Yes...I'm looking for the link, but I do believe it's true. The same books they make schools who flunk the test use for their students the Bush's have stock in.
Please post the link if you have it first. Thanks.
From here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/10/65829/2451#10
Brother Neil (none / 0)
Bush is/was into the computer software business and sold tutoring programs and administrative software to schools to help them comply with NCLB. Florida bought a bunch (JEB!).
Embrace diversity. Not everyone is intelligent. -6.25, -6.31
another link from D.U.
Neil Bush and Ignite
http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2001/02/19...
From the February 16, 2001 print edition
Neil Bush ignites education software firm
Amanda Bronstad
Austin Business Journal Staff
George W. Bush may have left Austin amid much fanfare, but the president's younger brother quietly is heading a local startup that's raising at least $10 million in second-round funding.
Neil Bush's Ignite! Inc., which develops educational software, is hoping to raise a second round in the near future, says Pamela Richardson, chief operating and strategic officer for Ignite! The company raised more than $5 million in first-round funding last year, she says.
Standerdized testing can only mesaure so much! It seems if teachers were paid on how well students do on that test, teachers will just feed students the anwers. I've seen teachers stress out when students do bad on tests, they worry that they will come off as an "impossibly hard teacher" or one of those "idiots who can't teach worth crap" so they make the tests easy so the students do well. But back to the point of it all, standerdized testing does get us somewhere. Its a good tool to use to know where students are compared to others.
Are you a teacher? I suspect you aren't.
First, if you want students academic achievements to improve than decrease the ratio of students/teacher.
Second--give all students more individual attention.
three--eliminate rote learning that only benefits the few who learn that way and instead teach to the skills and gifts that INDIVIDUAL students inherantly have.
four--provide more meaningful work
five--recognize that each student has skill they're good at and some they stink at but the object is to help each student thrive.
Its funny that the standardized test have literally rewritten the purpose of school itself. Students no longer learn they learn how to remove the worst answers and go for 2 out of 4. Fixing it is easy but no one seems to want to do it. Yet again there is such opposition to fixing the problem.
I don't know about "standerdized" testing, but I am supportive of standardized testing. And yes, I am a teacher.
I love abortion. Read more here:
http://progressiveu.org/044921-i-love-abortion-even-if-it-murder
I personally don't mind standardized tests, but i would definitely not want to take them in college. In Arizona, we have to take the AIMS and it you don't pass, then you don't graduate. Do you know how many kids are bad at tests but get A's or B's in their regular classes? I think that it is so messed up to base someone off of a test.
I feel sorry for the people who are just simply bad test takers. I think that institutions already place too much emphasis on standardized test. Even with state accountability tests, teachers are to the point where they only teach a test, not the actual subject.
The link to the NYT article expired, but I was wondering if this would just be for public universities/colleges. If it also extends to private universities, how is that constitutional?
--------------
Visit my blog at www.progressiveu.org/blog/optimisticcynic =)
I suppose in declaring standards... I have no idea though, this was posted forever and a day ago.