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Here come all the anti-testing comments, as expected. In the smartist era and in the meritocracy, we need more testing , not less, to help help identify gifted

Here come all the anti-testing comments, as expected. In the smartist era and in the meritocracy, we need more testing , not less, to help help identify gifted and slow students. Whether it's an IQ test or a proxy such as the SAT, testing is the best way to assess individual general cognitive functioning for large groups of people, as well as identity exceptionally talented individuals. More testing raises the stakes for everyone, meaning that the overall population becomes better educated and competitive, in order to do well on the tests. Furthermore, many smart students find coursework boring an get poor grades, but excel at standardized tests, because they already know the material. There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on.

smtddr 12y ago
Complete nonsense. Also, "In Florida, the results of end-of-course exams affect the evaluation and pay of teachers." So I bet low-income areas with less-educated parents working 2 jobs and too exhausted to really help their kids at home probably will have the lowest scores. So any quality-teachers in poorer areas will be less paid, so they'll leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality-teachers leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality-teachers leave... And what's the end result of that? The kids who need help THE MOST are the ones who get THE LEAST. >>There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on. Anyone who is considering tests for predicting people's future potential should watch this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ EDIT: I just noticed you said "the left", so you probably just have an axe to grind and I'm wasting my time with this comment.
- hyperpape 12y ago
  Most education reformers want to evaluate teachers based on the improvement/lack of improvement in their classes. This tends to mitigate the problem of good teachers in weak schools being punished. I think this is in place some places, though I can't whether there are places that do this the absurd way you're afraid of.
abfan1127 12y ago
Standardized tests miss so much useful marketable skills (sales, personal interaction). How many people do you know that "suck at taking tests"? I'd like to see that Ted Talk. Do you have a reference?
- th3iedkid 12y ago
  are you talking about Sir Ken Robinson's http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_crea...
drdeadringer 12y ago
There are important and key differences between "study for the test", "study for the knowledge", "passing the test", and "demonstrating your knowledge". For example: My wife can pass multiple-choice tests with little of the knowledge [she freely admits this]. She had to study her head off for a recent test in a subject she knew little about, because the test was only partially multiple-choice. She ended up passing, yet if I were cruel -- this subject is something I enjoy learning about on my own -- I could snap-test her at will to see if she retained anything for any given time period after the test, and she could likewise do so for herself in everyday life.
pyre 12y ago
> in the meritocracy I beg to differ. How many 'hot start-ups' are hiring experienced developers in their 50's vs. 20-somethings? If we're going to discriminate on things other than merit, we're not in a meritocracy. Your experience may differ, but it's also just anecdotal. > There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on. Assuming that this is correct, there will still be outliers (people that score poorly, but are still very successful). At the same time, the "kids that are too smart for school" are also outliers. You're entire argument, in my opinion, comes across as "I am in group of outliers X, therefore we all need to optimize everything for people in group X."
- sp332 12y ago
  I beg to differ. How many 'hot start-ups' are hiring experienced developers in their 50's vs. 20-somethings? If we're going to discriminate on things other than merit, we're not in a meritocracy. Your experience may differ, but it's also just anecdotal. This is GP's point. If you want to stop discriminating based on irrelevant things like age, you have to test relevant things.
  - pyre 12y ago
    So, the solution to (e.g.) age-ism in the workplace is final exams for 4-5 year olds?
    - sp332 12y ago
      The "final exam" in the article doesn't discriminate among kids, but teachers. There don't seem to be any consequences or "discrimination" for kids who fail the tests.
huherto 12y ago
Why would we want to separate people ? Al contrario. We want to use testing to identify holes and other areas of opportunity. To help the teachers teach better and the students to learn better.
- sp332 12y ago
  GP said "identify", not separate. In high school they kicked me out of Algebra class into a higher math class because they could see that I was bored. It would have been a huge waste of time and resources for me to keep sitting in that class for the rest of the year.
sergiosgc 12y ago
It is true that you can't manage what you can't measure. It's also true that you'd be hard pressed to find a crowd more quantitatively oriented than HN readers. It follows that there must be a fault with your analysis. The fault is in the ability to measure cognitive abilities in children. We know surprisingly little about how the human brain develops. A wrong measurement is worse than no measurement at all, for a multitude of reasons, the biggest of which is the fact that measuring will introduce undesired side effects. If you are introducing side effects, with no actionable result to show for, you should consider the value of measuring. As such, and given that western societies can accommodate free education at least until puberty, the solution is to provide free education. Assess cognitive abilities, for resource allocation purposes, at the terminus of the free education track.

smtddr 12y ago

Complete nonsense. Also, "In Florida, the results of end-of-course exams affect the evaluation and pay of teachers." So I bet low-income areas with less-educated parents working 2 jobs and too exhausted to really help their kids at home probably will have the lowest scores. So any quality-teachers in poorer areas will be less paid, so they'll leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality-teachers leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality-teachers leave... And what's the end result of that? The kids who need help THE MOST are the ones who get THE LEAST. >>There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on. Anyone who is considering tests for predicting people's future potential should watch this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ EDIT: I just noticed you said "the left", so you probably just have an axe to grind and I'm wasting my time with this comment.

hyperpape 12y ago
Most education reformers want to evaluate teachers based on the improvement/lack of improvement in their classes. This tends to mitigate the problem of good teachers in weak schools being punished. I think this is in place some places, though I can't whether there are places that do this the absurd way you're afraid of.

abfan1127 12y ago

Standardized tests miss so much useful marketable skills (sales, personal interaction). How many people do you know that "suck at taking tests"? I'd like to see that Ted Talk. Do you have a reference?

th3iedkid 12y ago
are you talking about Sir Ken Robinson's http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_crea...

drdeadringer 12y ago

There are important and key differences between "study for the test", "study for the knowledge", "passing the test", and "demonstrating your knowledge". For example: My wife can pass multiple-choice tests with little of the knowledge [she freely admits this]. She had to study her head off for a recent test in a subject she knew little about, because the test was only partially multiple-choice. She ended up passing, yet if I were cruel -- this subject is something I enjoy learning about on my own -- I could snap-test her at will to see if she retained anything for any given time period after the test, and she could likewise do so for herself in everyday life.

pyre 12y ago

> in the meritocracy I beg to differ. How many 'hot start-ups' are hiring experienced developers in their 50's vs. 20-somethings? If we're going to discriminate on things other than merit, we're not in a meritocracy. Your experience may differ, but it's also just anecdotal. > There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on. Assuming that this is correct, there will still be outliers (people that score poorly, but are still very successful). At the same time, the "kids that are too smart for school" are also outliers. You're entire argument, in my opinion, comes across as "I am in group of outliers X, therefore we all need to optimize everything for people in group X."

sp332 12y ago
I beg to differ. How many 'hot start-ups' are hiring experienced developers in their 50's vs. 20-somethings? If we're going to discriminate on things other than merit, we're not in a meritocracy. Your experience may differ, but it's also just anecdotal. This is GP's point. If you want to stop discriminating based on irrelevant things like age, you have to test relevant things.
- pyre 12y ago
  So, the solution to (e.g.) age-ism in the workplace is final exams for 4-5 year olds?
  - sp332 12y ago
    The "final exam" in the article doesn't discriminate among kids, but teachers. There don't seem to be any consequences or "discrimination" for kids who fail the tests.

huherto 12y ago

Why would we want to separate people ? Al contrario. We want to use testing to identify holes and other areas of opportunity. To help the teachers teach better and the students to learn better.

sp332 12y ago
GP said "identify", not separate. In high school they kicked me out of Algebra class into a higher math class because they could see that I was bored. It would have been a huge waste of time and resources for me to keep sitting in that class for the rest of the year.

sergiosgc 12y ago

It is true that you can't manage what you can't measure. It's also true that you'd be hard pressed to find a crowd more quantitatively oriented than HN readers. It follows that there must be a fault with your analysis. The fault is in the ability to measure cognitive abilities in children. We know surprisingly little about how the human brain develops. A wrong measurement is worse than no measurement at all, for a multitude of reasons, the biggest of which is the fact that measuring will introduce undesired side effects. If you are introducing side effects, with no actionable result to show for, you should consider the value of measuring. As such, and given that western societies can accommodate free education at least until puberty, the solution is to provide free education. Assess cognitive abilities, for resource allocation purposes, at the terminus of the free education track.