by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 10, 2016 | Blog, Issues in Education
While looking for models for the little sendup of progressive education that I posted recently, I came across a New York Times op-ed piece entitled “What Babies Know About Physics and Foreign Languages.” As the title and tag line (“Our kids don’t need to be taught in order to learn”) suggest, the piece is a pitch-perfect paean to the progressive ethos, touting the benefits of allowing preschoolers to learn “naturally,” through imitation.
While preschoolers can of course acquire many important skills this way, my immediate response to the article was to wonder how quickly Gopnik’s assertions about the benefits of natural learning for four year-olds would be misappropriated as an endorsement for treating higher levels of education this way.
As it turned out, I got my answer pretty quickly. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 8, 2016 | Blog
Vicki Wood over at Powerscore has posted an article on that company’s blog calling for David Coleman to be removed from his position as head of the College Board.
Citing the numerous problems that have plagued the redesigned SAT, including the cheating scandals resulting from the decision to reuse tests internationally and the hundreds of questions reportedly leaked to Reuters, Wood writes:
David Coleman is the leader of the College Board, and the responsibility for these numerous failures rightly lies with him. We believe that the only acceptable solution to these breaches—and really, the only way to save the integrity of the SAT and begin the long process of repair—is for Coleman to resign immediately. Given the arrogance he has displayed in the past we aren’t counting on him stepping down voluntarily, so it’s up to the College Board: admit responsibility, remove David Coleman, and immediately repair your broken test security system. The future of millions of college applicants is at stake. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 6, 2016 | Blog, The New SAT
Thanks to a blog reader for submitting this comment.
How many abysmal fails has College Board committed/experienced in the past 18 months?
The test (June 2015) with a misprint on the last sections about how much time students had that led to uneven test administrations across the country.
Disruptions in sending October (or was it November) scores to colleges because they started using their new system for score distribution – for the old test scores – before most admissions office had shifted over to that system (because this was still the old test format). (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 5, 2016 | Blog
The College Board has now responded to reports of a security breach involving October 2016 SAT questions by issuing the following statement: (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 4, 2016 | Blog
Reuters has now followed its exposé of widespread cheating on the new SAT with news of a massive security breach at the College Board:
Just months after the College Board unveiled the new SAT this March, a person with access to material for upcoming versions of the redesigned exam provided Reuters with hundreds of confidential test items. The questions and answers include 21 reading passages – each with about a dozen questions – and about 160 math problems…
To ensure the materials were authentic, Reuters provided copies to the College Board. In a subsequent letter to the news agency, an attorney for the College Board said publishing any of the items would have a dire impact, “destroying their value, rendering them unusable, and inflicting other injuries on the College Board and test takers.” (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 3, 2016 | Blog, Issues in Education
Just imagine if people talked about sports the same way they talk about education…
In the nineteenth century, when modern sports were invented, athletics served as an extension of the factories in which many of their players worked, reinforcing hierarchies and training athletes to be obedient and “play by the rules.” Today’s sports leagues are heirs to that model. Unsurprisingly, for many athletes, playing a sport has become a source of stress rather than one of joy.
Nothing could be more natural than the desire to run and play, but this inborn tendency is all too frequently destroyed by a system that emphasizes rote drilling of individual skills at the expense of more authentic forms of participation.
A new, more progressive model is clearly required, one that harnesses players’ innate love of games and movement, and that places players rather than sports at the center of the athletic process. (more…)
