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Should it be harder? No, I don't think so. Ideally the classes at any two schools should be roughly on par with one another. But I would assume that disparities

Should it be harder? No, I don't think so. Ideally the classes at any two schools should be roughly on par with one another. But I would assume that disparities do exist, unfortunately. An anecdote: my father was valedictorian of his podunk high school but nearly flunked out of his first year of college. And he's a smart guy, it was just a mixture of (1) not having study skills, since he'd never really needed to study before and (2) being a little behind on certain subjects (like math) that hadn't been taught well at his high school compared to the schools his peers attended. In a situation like that, I'd assume that an A in a class whose teacher is just phoning it in is not equivalent to an A in a class on the same subject whose teacher is serious about both teaching and grading.

riskable 3y ago
This is why standardized tests exist. They're the same test no matter where you're from. IMHO, standardized tests should always be about mastery and scoring should reflect that rather than having a simple number like 1200 or 1600. Someone could get a 600 on their Math SAT but the parts they got wrong were related to simple fractions or time-based calculations. If the only information you have is, "600 out of 800" you don't have that information. Furthermore they shouldn't even have scores, really. They should be pass/fail based on mastery of required subjects (whatever the test is about). Either you know quadratic equations or you don't. If you got 90% of the quadratic equations correct you know how to deal with quadratic equations... You probably just made a minor mistake somewhere or were running out of time. You still "got the gist of it". It would make a hell of a lot more sense to me if students had to take dozens of standardized tests demonstrating mastery of all facets of the high school curriculum rather than one great big test at the end of their schooling that measures their ability to remember randomly-sampled fractions of that knowledge.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  >It would make a hell of a lot more sense to me if students had to take dozens of standardized tests demonstrating mastery of all facets of the high school curriculum rather than one great big test at the end of their schooling that measures their ability to remember randomly-sampled fractions of that knowledge. Wait, if the one big test at the end was randomly sampled well, it would still provide results almost as good as requiring 10 to 30 times the same amount of test time and energy per student. I don't think this cost to benefit ratio makes sense.
  - riskable 3y ago
    If you take a test at the end of every class to demonstrate mastery of the subject how is that not cost effective?
    - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
      Because 30 hours is 30 times more than 1 hour. That's what a random sampling lets you get away with.
ghaff 3y ago
>Ideally the classes at any two schools should be roughly on par with one another. But I would assume that disparities do exist, unfortunately. Do you really think an intro to calculus class at the local community college and at Stanford should be the same class? Because I guarantee that the standardized class will either bewilder most of the community college students or bore/waste the time of many of the Stanford students.

riskable 3y ago

This is why standardized tests exist. They're the same test no matter where you're from. IMHO, standardized tests should always be about mastery and scoring should reflect that rather than having a simple number like 1200 or 1600. Someone could get a 600 on their Math SAT but the parts they got wrong were related to simple fractions or time-based calculations. If the only information you have is, "600 out of 800" you don't have that information. Furthermore they shouldn't even have scores, really. They should be pass/fail based on mastery of required subjects (whatever the test is about). Either you know quadratic equations or you don't. If you got 90% of the quadratic equations correct you know how to deal with quadratic equations... You probably just made a minor mistake somewhere or were running out of time. You still "got the gist of it". It would make a hell of a lot more sense to me if students had to take dozens of standardized tests demonstrating mastery of all facets of the high school curriculum rather than one great big test at the end of their schooling that measures their ability to remember randomly-sampled fractions of that knowledge.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
>It would make a hell of a lot more sense to me if students had to take dozens of standardized tests demonstrating mastery of all facets of the high school curriculum rather than one great big test at the end of their schooling that measures their ability to remember randomly-sampled fractions of that knowledge. Wait, if the one big test at the end was randomly sampled well, it would still provide results almost as good as requiring 10 to 30 times the same amount of test time and energy per student. I don't think this cost to benefit ratio makes sense.
- riskable 3y ago
  If you take a test at the end of every class to demonstrate mastery of the subject how is that not cost effective?
  - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    Because 30 hours is 30 times more than 1 hour. That's what a random sampling lets you get away with.

ghaff 3y ago

>Ideally the classes at any two schools should be roughly on par with one another. But I would assume that disparities do exist, unfortunately. Do you really think an intro to calculus class at the local community college and at Stanford should be the same class? Because I guarantee that the standardized class will either bewilder most of the community college students or bore/waste the time of many of the Stanford students.