From the latest SCC links post:
Freddie deBoer writes a white paper supporting standardized testing in colleges. His position is that private colleges need to be held accountable and we need proof that online courses don’t work, but American Interest points out that it might break the power of education-industrial complex if people who go to less prestigious institutions have an objective way to prove they’re just as good as people who went to more prestigious ones. And I will add that it might incentivize colleges to admit based on something vaguely resembling merit if they want higher test scores. Overall this would be amazing it it happened.
Um, but… We already have this in the Caribbean? Because we’re halfway civilised? Do you mean to tell me Americans are barbarians who let random colleges do whatever? If you don’t test your colleges, what are they even for? How can you know how a student at one college compares to one at another? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS???
I think I’ve determined the main trade-off between the Caribbean and the US: Sure, we’re poor; but when we design an institution, it isn’t fucking stupid.
I know I’m biased as someone who is, I think, reasonably smart and capable and does v poorly on standardized tests, but the idea that more standardized tests will force institutions to admit based on merit is ridiculous ime. Like with subject GREs, it will give schools an easy but inaccurate metric so they can avoid actually judging merit or potential.
As someone who does well on standardized tests, I also think that they are pointless as actual assessments. IMO the things that may make me successful in academics are exactly the things I had to learn to suppress to pass standardized exams. Logic, analytical skills, creativity. I think @quasitree is just not as good at suppressing her brilliance / perhaps her brilliance surpasses mine (the latter has always been my theory).
…Are your standardised tests really really different to mine? Like, as far as I can tell, logic, analytical skills, creativity, and depth of knowledge of the subject area are what I’ve been tested on?
Like, typical chem question would be something like: “You run a laboratory and have been given samples X, Y, and Z to identify. Their characteristics are [description]. Your budget is limited, so you can only devise one testing regimen to apply to all the samples. You can use some or all of [list of apparatus]. Design and justify an identification process with explanations of the principles behind each stage of chemical testing, cost effectiveness, the trade off between accuracy and efficiency, and the level of confidence you can expect for your identification.”
[cue me furiously writing four pages while cursing several deities]
I mean, if building and justifying your own experiments from scratch isn’t evidence of understanding chemistry, is their literally any observation you could make that would give you information about someone’s chemistry proficiency? If not, I still have to wonder what colleges are for because, for all we know, they aren’t teaching shit and no one can tell.
That’s way way way better than I’d have expected standardized tests to be. Finland is famous for faring well on international evaluations yet nonetheless our standardized tests are way shittier than that; and some countries allegedly even use the “guess the teacher’s password from options A to D, rinse repeat forever” type of standardized testing because it standardizes really well while not testing anything worthwhile at all. Caribbean testing is first-class, and the US really should import the geniuses who run that system and prevent it from crumbling to box-checking because wow.
3 months ago · tagged #bitching about the country of birth · 113 notes · source: sinesalvatorem · .permalink
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keepsakewhales reblogged this from ilzolende and added:Actually, although standardized tests are often associated with bubble-in scantrons, they aren’t limited to those....
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blastfarmer reblogged this from ilzolende and added:“Your budget is limited” is probably more a remark upon the state of funding for science than it is anything else....
estelendur reblogged this from lethriloth and added:This sounds much better than having tests graded by minimum-wage peons who are punished for appreciating creativity in...
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socialjusticemunchkin reblogged this from sinesalvatorem and added:Accred Inc. starts with a significant capital investment. It devises this kind of a testing regime, offers it for a...
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shacklesburst reblogged this from drethelin and added:Germany’s high school level final standardized tests sound a lot like the Caribbean system (or at least they did when I...
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drethelin reblogged this from plain-dealing-villain and added:I think one of my favorite things is people discovering that they’re using what they thought was a very specific phrase...
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plain-dealing-villain reblogged this from sinesalvatorem and added:Pretty sure the Carribean system wouldn’t survive scale-up, or contact with the high-stakes environment that is American...
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sinesalvatorem reblogged this from blastfarmer and added:For college-level standardised tests in the Caribbean, there would be two separate papers per subject area, plus a...
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thetransintransgenic reblogged this from sinesalvatorem and added:Ah, see, in US English, “Standardized test” means “fill-in-the-bubbles scantron test”, and nothing else.It’s just one of...
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