It is up to the candidates to learn how to mimic the model candidate, “regattas” and travel histories included. You will probably find that the immigrant students waste no time in doing so. That’s called “studying” and the immigrants are good at it.

If all of this sounds a little brutal, it’s supposed to be. It’s life in the Brave New World.

In Los Angeles they are competing to get into the correct pre-school. And so it goes.

I didn’t create this mess, I’m only commenting on it. You appear to be surprised at the commentary – have you not heard this kind of assessment of standardised testing before?

An example of the National Bar Exam multiple choice test – the “multistate”. We were taught at Bar review that the administrators of the Multistate embed experimental test questions each year. One of the things they look for is whether a particular test/experimental question is answered a certain way by the otherwise high scoring candidates, and is reliably answered differently by the known losers. A question that too many losers get right, or too many champions don’t – was discarded and not retained in the future. When the tests are designed, the whole point behind their construction is to find questions that actually sort winners from losers.

Nobody wants test questions that everyone gets correct. That is why relatively obscure words & phrases are used. Candidates who actually read will know them or will have enough reference experience to make an educated guess. That is why it’s “fair” to have vocabulary words such as “regatta” in a test for urban youth. As for your travel questions (I remember one rant because their lower class child was given a test wherin there was an answer involving using a taxicab) – yes, Ken and Barbie are at an advantage with these things. That’s the point. It’s Ken and Barbie that are the model for a successful college student and the closer you are to them the higher you score in such aptitude tests.

It’s all about sorting. Remember, the government doesn’t want the public schools to ever use IQ testing which might eliminate the need to play these games with proxy scoring.

This is also why the failure of the public schools to teach middle/upperclass values and norms renders the students unable to compete in the adult world.

Brave New World.

Well, these selection processes are not looking for lower class black children. At least the ones who don’t read books.

Or any other ethnic non book reading candidates.

A child with the expected and required level of reading would have known that word. We all know that does not include lower class children of any ethnic.

That’s the point of the test (PSAT etc anyway).

Entirely.

The question here is what are we testing for in 4th & 7th grade, anyway? The other tests I’ve mentioned are screening tests to eliminate wanna be college students who have no aptitude and would not be expected to be able to manage a real college.

It is possible this 4th and 7th grade test is intended to give people a heads up that their students is not keeping up with Ken and Barbie. Because Ken and Barbie are headed for Stanford, or at least UOP. The Piedmont families do need to have this info at 4th and 7th grade to see how Hyman and Lee are doing.

Is this a case of clashing perspectives – exactly who is being tested for what end? Is this a case of some people thinking they can raise their kid (not to read?) as a lower class child and shield that student from failing scores as they are tested against a college-bound norm? Are the complaining parties in this debate complaining because they only want lower class children to be given tests the can pass? Tests that “reflect” their low culture? If so they need their own educational system that prepares them to only be lower class.

Brave New World.

I understand your frustration with the prompt, but writing prompts for district-wide writing tests is very difficult, and full of pitfalls. One key issue lies with the rubric used to assess the writing, and the training of the graders: If “includes cheap sentimentality” is on the rubric, there is a problem. If it is not on the rubric, but the graders are swayed by its inclusion, there is a problem. But if neither of those is the case, then there is less of a problem. (Don’t get me started, though, on the use of “holistic” grading of essays, which seems to me to be an exemplar of the “emperor’s clothes.”)

With my oldest child, I was really focused on how he would do on this test, being the son of two writers. Well, even as a 4th-grader, my son viewed being deliberately poignant just to score points on a test as cheap pandering. So there are no 6′s in his record. (After that I recognized that this test was BS and ignored his 7th-grade score, and both of my younger child’s.)

So in this case, cynicism is punished and deep sincerity (or the ability to feign it) wins points. Obviously, neither has anything to do with writing ability.

One wishes the State had you to advise them! These kinds of inept decisions made in testing perpetuate society’s (intentional?) pattern of allowing access through these kinds of academic gates for only some of our children.

Charles Wilson, Principal: Korematsu Discovery Academy

An interesting note: The 4th Grade Writing Exam has been cancelled this year, presumably due to funding issues. See:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/oct09starnotes.asp

“Elimination of Grade Four Writing Assessment
The CST for Writing (the writing component of the CST for English–Language Arts [ELA]), and the CMA for Writing (the writing component of the CMA for ELA) will not be administered to students in grade four in the 2009-10 school year. The elimination of the writing task will have no effect on students’ achievement of proficiency because the CST for ELA in grade four and the CMA for ELA in grade four will be scaled and equated on the basis of the multiple-choice questions only.”