How great is the Providence Student Union? The students persuaded 50 accomplished professionals to take a test made up of released items from the math test.
60% of these brave and successful people would have failed to get a high school diploma if they were high school students.
The Providence Student Union made a video of the event. It is less than three minutes. See it here.
Next time you hear elected officials or advocates say they want more tests, ask them if they are willing to take the high school graduation test themselves. Ask Michelle. Ask Bill. Ask Arne. Ask Joel. Ask Bobby. Ask Andrew.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have said for over two decades that I would support any high-stakes graduation test or grade-level “basic skills” test as long as those politicians who voted in favor of the test had to take it themselves and agree to have their scores publicly released.
I’d be a bad person to ask to take these tests, though: I’ve always had a gift for multiple-choice tests and have only gotten better at them as I bothered to learn in my 30s the math I slept through in my teens. Of course, it’s not shocking that a lot of pols would struggle with the math. They’ve probably not had to use much of what’s on the ACT or SAT since they were in college, if that. But I wonder how well they’d do on the grammar, reading, or vocabulary-related portions. Those scores might really be shocking.
When I was on the NAEP board, I served on a committee that reviewed all the test questions. I did well on reading, history, and civics, but was totally undone by today’s math and science. Much, much harder than anything I encountered in high school.
So the lesson is clear: schools shouldn’t be teaching anything that some people might later forget.
That said, probably the vast majority of adults would fail a test over absolutely anything that is taught in high school: chemistry, biology, etc. People forget that stuff.
This leads to three possible conclusions: 1) Abolish high school altogether (why bother teaching hard stuff like math or chemistry that most people will forget?); 2) Abolish academic subjects in high school and let high school just be about football, drinking, dating, and watching movies; or possibly 3) dumb down all of middle and high school to, say, a sixth grade level, so that no one ever has to learn material that is too hard.
RE ‘Would you take the test?’
(I took it and didn’t do so well!)
Finally, someone sees the light.
Math is simple but requires practice; in some cases a lot of practice.
Employers want to know what to expect from people who graduate
high school and/or college. With “NEW MATH” they are flummoxed!
Some things about mathematics and learning are eternal, despite
“progressive {Does Dewey come to mind?}” thinking.
Progressive educational beliefs that are foisted on the low-information public
have failed to deliver anything of use to America!
Baltimore, Camden, Newark, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, …
All run by Democrat politicians, all fail!
Ed Brqdford, Ph.D. Physics, retired
Pflugerville,TX
Current in-classroom volunteer in 8th grade math
My school district still prides itself on being a progressive district, and up until recently, I would have agreed. Now they are moving toward data driven objectives and tests are giving birth to more tests. Our children moved on to a highly competitive, nationally known high school with students from more traditional elementary education. Kids from the progressive program did as well if not better than their peers from other districts. I was always impressed with the emphasis on critical thinking. Because the high school, especially, has consistently been highly rated, it has been able to resist a lot of the nonsense generated by the so-called reform movement over the last couple of decades. Almost the entire high school population goes on to college (98%?). I can’t imagine any of the elementary schools becoming test factories, but I cringe at the demand for standardized assessments that parents believe measure their children’s ability. I see highly talented and creative teachers being demoralized and demonized by top down micromanagement.
Not to mention, 2old, that this high school has not made AYP (the special ed. subgroup, even though they came closest to the %age needed to meet or exceed than almost every other school district)
for at least the past 2 years. The Chicago Tribune even used it as a headline for an editorial questioning the validity of “standardized” tests. It was famously titled “New Trier’s ‘F.'” Can you imagine this community’s parents getting the standard “choice school letter?”
I know, for a fact, that my neighbors had a good chuckle over that!
*Of course, these tests are not “standardized”–they are neither valid nor reliable. Read Todd Farley’s Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry.”
I read Todd Farley’s book several months ago. Too bad we can’t make it required reading not only for all school personnel but especially for parents who still equate achievement with test scores. The opt-out movement would explode. I have noticed that Pearson has been advertizing for test scorers in the area. I was half tempted to apply for the “experience.”
Given the gushingly reform supportive editorials and opinion pieces that the Trib has been running this week, one has to wonder why they bothered to broach the subject of the pending AYP debacle.
I teach in RI. I just want to thank everyone who took the test. Responsibility at its finest!
Bring it on! But at the end of the day, what does that prove? Will my acing this test show that not all government employees are thick-headed drones that you make them out to be? Or will that just invite more finger pointing and accusations of arrogance?
Or does the results of this social experiment prove (or suggest) that life success might only be loosely correlated with academic achievement or skill proficiency? I’m sure every one of us here can name plenty of people who are less qualified and have better jobs than we do, and plenty who are more qualified and have worse jobs than we do.
For every successful professional who can’t score proficient on this test, how many people are out there who have worked years and years through the academic system feel only to face an unemployment lines after graduating at the top of their class?
Do we ever ask whether the economy is so bleak for those from underprivileged families that the rational thing to do is to buy a lottery ticket instead of save for tomorrow? Or whether that there are so few job possibilities out there and so little money for college-going students that focusing on academic achievement in high school for an inner city student has approximately the same expected payoff as someone who pins all their hopes and dreams on being a professional athlete or an American Idol contestant?
Tests are imperfect measuring sticks that attempt to proxy academic achievement. Despite what your politics on testing, however, they do correlate better with academic achievement than academic achievement correlate with professional success.
Perhaps instead of blaming the yardstick for being a few inches off, we should look at why those who are shorter still succeeded in professions dominated by giants.
When Arne Duncan made a guest appearance on NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” a few weeks ago, the Secretary of Education was asked several questions about the education of secretaries in the early 20th century. Although his answers to these silly questions came off as sharp and accurate in the edited broadcast, that was not how the segment unfolded during the taping of the show, which I attended. In the real world scenario, Mr. Duncan, who was stumped by the questions, asked both the panel and host for help, which they graciously provided. That Mr. Duncan seemed oblivious to the double standard made me wonder if he could pass a test on irony.
Ask Obama. And ask him, Rahm, Arne and all the rest to require the same tests as frequently at their kids private schools.
A very powerful and inspiring experience! I did some additional research on the web and translated it into Spanish for wider dissemination. See: Take the Test! in my blog http://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2013/03/take-test.html Hopefully student associations in Latin America and elsewhere get inspired and try something similar. Simple. Replicable. Politically and pedagogically powerful. Congratulations, PSU! And thanks to Diane Ravitch. I learned about this experience thanks to her blog.