Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Actually states have a whole variety of tests and different ways of
penalizing students or teachers.  In TX the mandated test has been used to
determine the fitness to graduate, and failure means no graduation.  It is
also used to rate schools/teachers/administrators.  But in the future they
are going to end of course exams which may be used to deny credit to
individual students.  It is not clear how it will be handled.  As I recall
the traditional NY State Regents exams were often treated as a final course
exam, so it did affect the final grade.  The teacher graded it, but then it
went to the state and was regarded.  I had an ironic essay which the teacher
loved, but the state did not.  Obviously humor does not travel well.

In one district that I was in, the district had a mandated end of course
multiple choice exam.  But the teachers made it up and saw it before it was
administered.  So the predictable happened, the students were given a review
sheet which mirrored the exam closely.  I now realize that a number of
questions were actually very poor and in some cases wrong.  This exam was
also used to rate schools/teachers.

I was under the impression that the norm for most states exams was to give a
high stakes exam that could veto the student's graduation, but might not
factor into the GPA.  Some schools also give other normed standardized
exams.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



>  	We are clearly talking about two different things, which is the
> best way that I know of to have a really unreasolvable disagreement.
> When I teach in a public school, my final grade is determined on the basis
> of tests that I create from scratch.  The course content conforms,
> generally, to the course description in the school catalogue.
>  	A couple of times during a student's elementary school career the
> student may be faced with a state administered (not merely 'mandated')
> test.  That test score does not, in any jurisdiction of which I am aware,
> affect the student's final grade in any course, but does affect the state
> evaluation of the school.  That is the test that is delivered under seal.
>  	If anyone knows of specific, identifiable exceptions to the
> foregoing, I would be pleased to learn about them.  The operative words in
> the last sentence are "specific" and "identifiable".