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An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

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Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#121

Post by vonmoltke »

prewett wrote: post #103
Retric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many ways the trend if for the US over the last 200 years to become less ethical the more formally religious it is. (As measured by things like church attendance.) If you can site some counter evidence I would be interested in reading it.

Sounds like you have an axe to grind, especially since you cite no evidence yourself... How would you measure "less ethical," anyway? Are we more ethical now than 200 years ago or less, in your view? According to Gallup, 91% of Americans in 1948 claimed to be Christian, compared to 69% in 2016. [0] I would assume "formally religious" is tracks similarly. Personally, I think we are less ethical, but since I wasn't aro…

> According to Gallup, 91% of Americans in 1948 claimed to be Christian, compared to 69% in 2016. [0] I would assume "formally religious" is tracks similarly.

This is kinda tangential, but according to a very interesting panel discussion a few weeks ago "formally religious" (as measured by church attendance) as actually been more or less constant over this period. The 22% drop includes few who regularly attended religious services. The relation to the panel discussion, and somewhat to this one, is that the drop in nominal adherents has been part of what has fuelled the moralist resurgence on the right since the 90s.

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#122

Post by vonmoltke »

cbhl wrote: post #76
cperciva wrote: post #74

Standardized tests are a lousy way of deciding things. But at least they're better than non-standardized tests. At my university (SFU, in Canada) admission to most faculties is based on high school grades. That's grades awarded by high schools -- we used to have province-wide grade 12 exams, but for almost all subjects those were abolished a few years ago. It's widely recognized at the post-secondary level that a 90%…

> but if anyone is actually adjusting high school grades to account for these differences, they're not admitting it. I am pretty sure this was the standard line for campus tours at the University of Waterloo -- that you should take high school exams at your school and not at some diploma mill, because Waterloo did adjust your entrance average based on what high school you came from, and how those students did once th…

> that you should take high school exams at your school and not at some diploma mill

I have never heard this term applied to a high school before. Is this a thing in Canada?

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#123

Post by walshemj »

cperciva wrote: post #74

Standardized tests are a lousy way of deciding things. But at least they're better than non-standardized tests. At my university (SFU, in Canada) admission to most faculties is based on high school grades. That's grades awarded by high schools -- we used to have province-wide grade 12 exams, but for almost all subjects those were abolished a few years ago. It's widely recognized at the post-secondary level that a 90%…

Seriously there is no national standard for high school tests in Canada?

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#124

Post by hyperdunc »

pmoriarty wrote: post #114
hyperdunc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oppressive social systems? You mean like the capitalist patriarchy boogeyman? I'm all for questioning social systems because goodness knows the ones we have contain many problems. But the article you linked is from 2004 and out of date with regards to what is happening. Postmodernism in universities is moving into the social sciences and attempting to destroy the bedrock of modern Western civilization. It wouldn't be…

"Oppressive social systems? You mean like the capitalist patriarchy boogeyman?" I mean things like racism, misogyny, colonialism, social inequality, and yes, even the oppressive aspects of capitalism -- which actually do exist, much as some would like to spin capitalism as an untarnished blessing on the world. "But the article you linked is from 2004 and out of date with regards to what is happening. Postmodernism in…

I don't accept that racism and misogyny are still embedded in social systems. Western colonialism doesn't exist anymore, unless you count overseas military bases. And capitalism is undoubtably tarnished, but few claim otherwise. Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty and increased absolute wealth significantly.

The largest stomping boots belonged to people like Stalin and Mao, who were far from conservative and ostensibly for equity. History tells us who's interests they cared for.

Many people with power will attempt to retain and increase their power by exploiting others, regardless of their political ideology or the social system they're part of - it's human nature. Their corruptive success may be mitigated by suitable social organization, but my contention is that social Marxism will actually increase their success.

A primary goal of conservatives is preserving what works, at the expense of attempting alternatives. I'm not broadly conservative, but on this issue I think it's worth preserving the values that allowed the West to prosper. Judeo-Christian values like virtue and work ethic. Enlightenment values like individualism, free speech and personal property. Modern values like mass education in science and reason.

Postmodernism deconstucts and equalizes everything. It has no respect for what works in the real world or how difficult it is to evolve relatively stable and fair societies.

If you think the corruption in our current system makes it untenable, how do you propose stopping corruption from once again infesting a Marxist replacement? Would it not be better to patch what we already have?

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#125

Post by Retric »

prewett wrote: post #103
Retric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many ways the trend if for the US over the last 200 years to become less ethical the more formally religious it is. (As measured by things like church attendance.) If you can site some counter evidence I would be interested in reading it.

Sounds like you have an axe to grind, especially since you cite no evidence yourself... How would you measure "less ethical," anyway? Are we more ethical now than 200 years ago or less, in your view? According to Gallup, 91% of Americans in 1948 claimed to be Christian, compared to 69% in 2016. [0] I would assume "formally religious" is tracks similarly. Personally, I think we are less ethical, but since I wasn't aro…

USA Murder rate 1948 : 5.9 vs 4.9 (2015 aka now) I don't know about you but I would call Murder a rather extreme unethical behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Now, compare with say France a very secular and minimally religious country and their murder rate is 1.31 (Though not 100% apples to apples this extends across many other similar statistics.) : http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/Unit...

Surprisingly China and Japan perhaps the most atheist countries out there with significantly different economic situations also have lower murder rates than France. (Though again not apples to apples statistics.)

PS: I often hear about morality religion links but only see a few meaningless connections like church attendance and divorce rates.

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#126

Post by cperciva »

walshemj wrote: post #123
cperciva wrote: post #74

Standardized tests are a lousy way of deciding things. But at least they're better than non-standardized tests. At my university (SFU, in Canada) admission to most faculties is based on high school grades. That's grades awarded by high schools -- we used to have province-wide grade 12 exams, but for almost all subjects those were abolished a few years ago. It's widely recognized at the post-secondary level that a 90%…

Seriously there is no national standard for high school tests in Canada?

Correct. Not even provincial standards in many cases.

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

prewett wrote: post #103
Retric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many ways the trend if for the US over the last 200 years to become less ethical the more formally religious it is. (As measured by things like church attendance.) If you can site some counter evidence I would be interested in reading it.

Sounds like you have an axe to grind, especially since you cite no evidence yourself... How would you measure "less ethical," anyway? Are we more ethical now than 200 years ago or less, in your view? According to Gallup, 91% of Americans in 1948 claimed to be Christian, compared to 69% in 2016. [0] I would assume "formally religious" is tracks similarly. Personally, I think we are less ethical, but since I wasn't aro…

> In 2016, the more popular claim is moral relativism, namely that there is no absolute right or wrong.

No, it's not.

Conservatives love to pretend that disagreement with their values is rejection of all values, but that is simply not the case.

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#128

Post by Kenji »

SeeDave wrote: post #58
jbscpa wrote: post #15

My spouse is a classroom educator. Her school participates in Great Expectations program. http://www.greatexpectations.org/ It is a character development program "that provides teachers and administrators with the skills needed to create harmony and excitement within the school atmosphere" There are 8 Expectations at the elementary level 1. We will value one another as unique special individuals 2. We will not laugh…

>2. We will not laugh at or make fun of a person's mistakes nor use sarcasm or putdowns. I would have appreciated this as my public school experience was rife with negativity, sarcasm, snark, jeering, insulting, etc. I'm not sure what causes such anti-social behavior but I dream of a day where all students can be kind, considerate, polite, and supportive of one another.

In my early teens, I was the only one who used sarcasm in the classroom, and none of my peers understood it. There needs to be more sarcasm in schools.

Re: An alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society

#130

Post by Bakary »

cperciva wrote: post #74

Standardized tests are a lousy way of deciding things. But at least they're better than non-standardized tests. At my university (SFU, in Canada) admission to most faculties is based on high school grades. That's grades awarded by high schools -- we used to have province-wide grade 12 exams, but for almost all subjects those were abolished a few years ago. It's widely recognized at the post-secondary level that a 90%…

>I worry that we're moving back to a world where university admission will depend less on aptitude and more on having parents who have the money and the connections to get you the "right" extracurricular experience.

We already moved back to this system and have done so for a long time, in my opinion.

There's also a second round of this phenomenon with unpaid internships.

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