US School Districts: Changing Grading System - Is It A Good Idea?

[HAYAO]

Not necessarily "wrong", just that "good test taker" is not the same as what is actually desired: a student who can put the knowledge learned to actual use.

Which is much, much harder than your remark here suggests.

None of this addresses my concern. My concern is not that "good test taker" has zero correlation with things we actually care about; I never made any such claim. My concern is that "good test taker" is not the same as the things we actually care about. The things we actually care about probably cannot be tested directly in an artificial environment at all. Whether or not standardized tests, or grades in school, are a good enough proxy for the things we actually care about to make using them as metrics worthwhile is a difficult question involving a lot of judgment calls; it is not the straightforward cookie cutter process you appear to believe it is.

Yeah, exactly, there's no doubt about it. Have I denied that anywhere in my posts?

Look, we actually agree on most points, and we are drifting away from what actually needs to be discussed. I am merely stating that the tests we have today is the best we've got right now. With the most rigorously general one being the IQ test. Standardized tests as Dale pointed out are also feasible approach. So we have to work with what we have. Teachers (ideally) put hours and hours of effort in making tests that hopefully assess what it's supposed to test, so that's the best we've got. You can't just say "well the test don't account for this and that". What do you suggest we do?

I believe literally everyone here understand how difficult it is to make a "good test". Stop assuming that teachers don't know that. I teach in college, I have my license for grade-school as well. I know what I'm talking about.

Also, I never claimed that you think a "good test taker" has zero correlation. Where have I said that?

The statement about IQ tests addresses your point exactly. You think that tests can't distinguish between "real thinkers" and "good test takers". That's true, but the point is, what do you suggest we do? IQ test is one of the most rigorous general cognitive ability test developed by science, despite not being perfect. People criticize IQ tests for their inadequacy, but it's still the best we've got. The 'best we got' has an correlation with career success up to merely 0.4. I want you to put that into perspective. You are making a pointless statement when you talk about "grades don't fully reflect this and that" because everyone knows that. Yeah sure. In that case, PhD degrees also don't reflect the actual academic ability of the holder but is almost always the prerequisite to get a position in college. So, should PhD be abandoned concept? Or should be replaced with something else? Can you suggest an alternative? The answer is, we can't do anything about the test further than the best we have today. But it's still better than most alternatives, so we have to use it anyway.

At least in my opinion, the alternative is definitely not using homework as a way to grade. (In case you might try to twist what I said, I am not saying you claimed that we should use homework to grade.)

As a side note, I always recommend combination of projects and tests for classes and grade solely based on those two. Tests tend to test one's ability within a given time limit to answer specific questions. Project on the other hand have some level of abstraction that students can freely experiment with. I also suggest teachers use combination of specific problem based projects and fully abstract project (students come up with their own question). I also suggest using standardized tests in combination with normal tests that teachers create because there's some specificity of those test and what it assess.

 

[PeterDonis]

the point is, what do you suggest we do?

My personal opinion is that we overemphasize credentials. You say IQ tests correlate with "career success". Are our schools supposed to be assessing children for "career success"? Why? It seems to me that, if a particular employer wants to assess a particular person, the employer is the one in the best position to know what they need to assess. I believe it's already been remarked in this thread that once you're an adult, nobody cares what grades you got in school anyway.

It also seems to me that it's up to the person themselves to decide what "career success", and indeed "success" or a "good life" in general, means to them and how best to pursue it. If the person wants to take an IQ test, or any other test, to help them do that, that's fine. But that's not what we're talking about here. Nor are we talking about using the results of tests (or homework or anything else) to give students feedback about how they are doing (which I have no problem with--when I was a student I always wanted feedback like that). We're talking about schools assessing students and using the results of those assessments to make decisions about the students. Saying "well, we have to do this and these tests are the best we've got", IMO, is not enough. We should be asking whether we have to "do this" at all, and to what extent.

 

[HAYAO]

My personal opinion is that we overemphasize credentials. You say IQ tests correlate with "career success". Are our schools supposed to be assessing children for "career success"? Why? It seems to me that, if a particular employer wants to assess a particular person, the employer is the one in the best position to know what they need to assess. I believe it's already been remarked in this thread that once you're an adult, nobody cares what grades you got in school anyway.

It also seems to me that it's up to the person themselves to decide what "career success", and indeed "success" or a "good life" in general, means to them and how best to pursue it. If the person wants to take an IQ test, or any other test, to help them do that, that's fine. But that's not what we're talking about here. Nor are we talking about using the results of tests (or homework or anything else) to give students feedback about how they are doing (which I have no problem with--when I was a student I always wanted feedback like that). We're talking about schools assessing students and using the results of those assessments to make decisions about the students. Saying "well, we have to do this and these tests are the best we've got", IMO, is not enough. We should be asking whether we have to "do this" at all, and to what extent.

Oh sure, I agree with that statement. I suck at reading between the lines so I didn't properly understand your points in your previous posts. I also question whether or not we need to know all of the knowledge we are taught in k-12 (if you are in the US) education system to live happy in this world. And of course, it is not up to us to decide what "career success" means.

It seems, however, from the perspective of psychology that people who are satisfied with their life generally have good psychological habits. For example, let's say that you are a pedestrian walking around the sidewalk and a car crashes into you. You break both of your legs. The doctors do the best they can to operate on your legs, and the driver is paying you all the money and compensations. The problem is that you require 2 years of rehabilitation to be able to walk again. People with unhealthy mindset will not engage in the rehabilitation process and spends rest of their life being resentful about the driver and the doctors. People with healthy mindset will engage in the rehabilitation and (possibly) be able to walk again. The difference is whether one is willing to own responsibility of their future, regardless of how wronged they were in getting to the current position.

In that sense, people with a good healthy mindset tend to be happy no matter what kind of situation they are put in. As such, "advanced nations" don't rank high in the "Global Emotions Report", which reports subjective sense of their emotional being of individuals (in contrast to World Happiness Report which is based on GDP, life expectancy, welfare, etc., which I believe is irrelevant). Top ten nations in Global Emotions Report include Ecuador, Philippines, Iran, Nicaragua, and contains literally zero European nations. Most countries consider these countries to have poor educational system. So the answer is definitely not, just studying bunch of stuff.

Nonetheless, if we were to assess whether they will become a workforce in society, then at least some workforce (such as scientists) certainly need some sort of guidelines in terms of their academic success. Developed nations typically require more "brainier" people to sufficiently serve as a workforce because the technology is developed way too far. That's why children aren't a reliable workforce until about 20 years old in developed nations, while in some countries even a 10-year-olds can become a workforce. Our current situation, particularly in the developed nations, is the way they are because it was meant to be. Unless you want to devaluate science and technology and other workforces, I don't see a situation where educational system abandoning tests and grading system. So that's where I disagree with you. Yes, we need them, and thus we need to use the best we've got. It might not be objectively important for happiness, but we certainly won't and can't go back.

 

[Rive]

..."behavioral parameterization" in grading.

Erm... For a class level grading it's not really 'behavioral'. It's more like an overall assessment of results belonging to the relevant area, forced to be represented on a single digit.
What's not really good anyway, but since it's an overall grade, it is kind of expected to be an overall content.
At least, for me.

Exam level/kind of grading is just a snapshot through the instrument of the 'exam'.
Just like that.

Both has their own place and function and I don't think they are equivalent or interchangeable.

 

[HAYAO]

Erm... For a class level grading it's not really 'behavioral'. It's more like an overall assessment of results belonging to the relevant area, forced to be represented on a single digit.
What's not really good anyway, but since it's an overall grade, it is kind of expected to be an overall content.
At least, for me.

Exam level/kind of grading is just a snapshot through the instrument of the 'exam'.
Just like that.

Both has their own place and function and I don't think they are equivalent or interchangeable.

I hope I understand you correctly, but most grading (at least in the district I lived in when I was in the US) contains criteria such as "attitudes" and "attentiveness", which has to do with child behavior during class. I am arguing from a psychological standpoint that favoring certain behavior without actually understanding the psychology behind it is not something teachers are trained to do. So accounting for the daily behavior of children into the final grades is not appropriate. Sorry if I am missing your point.

 

[jack action]

Unless you want to devaluate science and technology and other workforces, I don't see a situation where educational system abandoning tests and grading system.

So one cannot learn science and technology without being tested or graded? I failed to see the link between the two. The only purpose of a test is to prove to others that you know the subject. You don't need to prove something to others in order to learn.

 

[Dale]

The only purpose of a test is to prove to others that you know the subject.

Yes, but in my opinion that is one of the two primary responsibilities of a teacher.

 

[HAYAO]

So one cannot learn science and technology without being tested or graded? I failed to see the link between the two. The only purpose of a test is to prove to others that you know the subject. You don't need to prove something to others in order to learn.

It's not just a tool to prove to a third-party that a student is certified in a certain subject. As @Dale pointed out, testing can be used as a communication tools with the students to assess the attainment level of the subject. Many teachers incorporate interim test, whether they consciously have the intent or not, use interim test to see how much their student learned.

 

[PeterDonis]

f we were to assess whether they will become a workforce in society, then at least some workforce (such as scientists) certainly need some sort of guidelines in terms of their academic success

As I said, if particular employers need to assess people, they are the ones in the best position to know what assessment they need. If a scientific organization, such as a university doing research, needs to do an academic assessment, they can do it. For instance, you might be required to take a standardized test to check your subject matter knowledge in order to get into, say, a Ph.D. program. But most people are not going to try to be scientists so there would be no reason for them to take any such assessment. And a Ph.D. program, while it would probably look at grades from previous academic work if they were available, could probably get along just fine without them as long as it had the ability to require its own assessment test.

Similar remarks would apply to other areas of employment that need "brainier" people as workers: a specific assessment of a person's aptitude for that particular area of employment would be much more useful to them than a general assessment of "braininess", and provided they were allowed to use the former, they could get along quite well without the latter.

 

[mfb]

EVERY course I attended, high school, college, or university, had assigned homework which was required to be turned-in (yes, to the best of my memory- cannot recall any exceptions); and the homework counted for anything from 5% to maybe 15% of the course final grade. Maybe those teachers were using this credit as bribe to make the students study and do homework.

Well, I had the opposite experience.
In high school homework wouldn't be turned in, the teacher would ask a few students to present their work. No direct grade for it. Teachers would grade your overall contribution to the lessons (sort of) each half year, it could influence that grade a bit.
At university homework was graded, it was nice to get feedback, but formally you only used that to be admitted to the exam and the threshold was really low (you could easily stop handing in anything after half of the time if you wanted). The grade for the class was 100% the exam. That grade was largely irrelevant, too - because the final grade of the degree was purely based on oral exams and the thesis. In addition there were only a few classes that you had to attend: You still needed to know what was covered in others, but you didn't need to get a grade in them. That means homework and exams in them were purely optional.

 

[YoshiMoshi]

Wait I don't understand this at all? Can someone sum it up for me?

Basically they want to take race into consideration when determining grades?

-Modified

Sorry for my rant...

 

[phinds]

Sorry for my rant...

So are we

 

[YoshiMoshi]

It would be nice to have conversations on topics like this were we can rationalize our opinions in a calm collect manner. But people tend to loose their cool and scream and yell at each other on controversial topics. God forbid two people sit down like two grown adults and rationalize their views to each other.

 

[Rive]

God forbid two people sit down like two grown adults and rationalize their views to each other.

It's not forbidden. Just requires some good... spirit

 

[Evo]

The title of this thread is misleading. The OP cites an article titled "San Diego Schools Are Changing Their Grading System. Is It A Good Idea?" and somehow PF expands the headline to encompass to all US schools.

The title was changed, because phinds' article included links to articles discussing the change being implemented around the US, not just San Diego.

 

[symbolipoint]

Well, I had the opposite experience.
In high school homework wouldn't be turned in, the teacher would ask a few students to present their work. No direct grade for it. Teachers would grade your overall contribution to the lessons (sort of) each half year, it could influence that grade a bit.
At university homework was graded, it was nice to get feedback, but formally you only used that to be admitted to the exam and the threshold was really low (you could easily stop handing in anything after half of the time if you wanted). The grade for the class was 100% the exam. That grade was largely irrelevant, too - because the final grade of the degree was purely based on oral exams and the thesis. In addition there were only a few classes that you had to attend: You still needed to know what was covered in others, but you didn't need to get a grade in them. That means homework and exams in them were purely optional.

Was that ONLY for graduate school, or did you mean that was your experience for undergraduate and for high school?

 

[YoshiMoshi]

So can i express my views on this in a polite manner to articulate my view point, and then if people disagree with me, they are free to articulate why they disagree with my view point, and rationalize theirs. This would be beneficial because not only do I get to rationalize my view point, but I get to understand the opposing sides view more and why they they think the way they do. This will allow me to further rationalize my view point. Or who knows if people who disagree with me do a good job at rationalizing their viewpoint, they might even be able to change my mind. Can this be done without being considered political?

 

[phinds]

Can this be done without being considered political?

Only if you leave politics out of it.

 

[phinds]

God forbid two people sit down like two grown adults and rationalize their views to each other.

Yeah, sigh. That seems to downright un-American these days.

 

[HAYAO]

As I said, if particular employers need to assess people, they are the ones in the best position to know what assessment they need. If a scientific organization, such as a university doing research, needs to do an academic assessment, they can do it. For instance, you might be required to take a standardized test to check your subject matter knowledge in order to get into, say, a Ph.D. program. But most people are not going to try to be scientists so there would be no reason for them to take any such assessment. And a Ph.D. program, while it would probably look at grades from previous academic work if they were available, could probably get along just fine without them as long as it had the ability to require its own assessment test.

Similar remarks would apply to other areas of employment that need "brainier" people as workers: a specific assessment of a person's aptitude for that particular area of employment would be much more useful to them than a general assessment of "braininess", and provided they were allowed to use the former, they could get along quite well without the latter.

I don't think you understand the point I was making.

Most jobs in developed nations require "more brain" than it ever used to. Even bricklayers (I'm not saying they are stupid) have more to learn compared to 100 years ago due to better technology and techniques. You can also look at the welfare system. Again, we have so many types of welfare that people can take advantage of. However, not many people are knowledgeable enough to even research them since welfare is something that drastically changed over recent years, perhaps recent 20 years. People have no idea where to start. Education in these area has not caught up to the sudden changes in the social system. Laws are also good example. Transportation law has made a lot of new refinement over the past 20 years, and is probably going to be a lot more complicated with the advent of automatic driving cars. Now if you were one of those drivers, you have enough experience that changes in laws are merely an incremental refinement. But if you start from absolute scratch, you have a lot to learn than the people, say 4 decades ago.

Some psychologists points out that one of the reason why modern people have higher average IQ than people 50 years ago is because high IQ has become a prerequisite to make a base living in modern world.

Now, you can make an argument that we don't necessarily need to learn calculus to learn how to lay bricks. But the point is that, modern education is (ideally) no longer about learning what is already available, but to prepare for the diverse and increasingly unpredictable future. That requires tremendous amount of training, including base knowledge in wide range of area, hence why modern children spend almost 22 years before they go into the workforce. It was inevitable.

 

[Astronuc]

improve our instruction

That would seem to be an entirely separate, perhaps not entirely independent, worthwhile discussion. I've wondered about that since high school.

When I was in 10th grade, I tutored a kid (senior in high school) in the neighborhood in chemistry, since I had taken a course in chemistry during a summer program between 9th and 10th grade.

the stories she told were horrible about kids with no self-discipline at all and a system with no way to motivate them.

I known a lot of bad situations of peers from when I went to school, or learned about later, and my wife has told me about situations at the school where she taught. Some kids come from unstable and sometimes violent homes. I knew a kid in 4th grade who lived with his grandparents because his parents couldn't take care of him. I knew a girl in 9th grade who claimed she had an abortion (I certainly couldn't verify, but it was a weird story to make up); she also stabbed me (with a sharpened pencil) in the leg in class (she had issues).

My wife told me of a boy, who was a problem at school; he had witnessed his father beat and choke his mother. More recently, I've known an adolescent who lives with his grandparents; his mother died of a drug overdose, and the father is dysfunctional.

My wife told me of a bright young boy who would go to the school library, and just look through atlases. He knew about many countries. He had no books at home. We bought him a nice atlas as a gift. We felt he deserved some encouragement.

 

[mfb]

Was that ONLY for graduate school, or did you mean that was your experience for undergraduate and for high school?

Germany, these names don't translate 1:1 because the system is different. What I called high school was up to class 13, i.e. school up to the typical age of 18-19. What I called university was university - what would now be BSc and MSc. For my PhD I didn't have any classes or homework.

 

[PeterDonis]

Most jobs in developed nations require "more brain" than it ever used to.

I'm not disputing that at all. Nor am I disputing that education needs to take that into account. (Although "education" does not necessarily mean "publicly funded education"; whether the government is really the best entity to be providing education is, IMO, a valid question, but it would be a topic for a separate thread.)

But those aren't the questions we're discussing in this thread. We're discussing assessments, how they should be done, and who should do them. We're not discussing what things people need to learn. That's what I was discussing in my post, and your response didn't actually address anything I said.

 

[HAYAO]

@Astronuc
I completely agree with the implications of your post.

Kids who have zero self-discipline usually come from rather dysfunctional family, or has been abused emotionally or physically. As a matter of fact, children being "too disciplined" may also come from toxic parents. It is rare that kids have some sort of learning disabilities (such as ADHD and autism) so lack of self-discipline comes from other factors.

I had peers who were selling drugs (confirmed), some with neglecting parents (confirmed), some with physically abusive parents (confirmed), some with single-parent "by choice" (confirmed), a girl that aborted numerous times (it could just be a rumor), a girl with eating disorders (confirmed). They all had problems with behavior and they all came from family environment. Arguing self-discipline to these children is only fighting the symptoms and not the cause. These people really need proper help, and the earlier, the better.

Throughout my teacher's training course, we actually had psychiatrist (with a degree in clinical psychology as well) to explain abuses and their relationship with school behavior. I've watched some actual videos of abuse that was just horrible. Some girls in the class were throwing up, some were crying, and some just left. I remember clearly that the lecturer said "people can get really evil but even such 'evil' has a cause. We can never solve evil without solving the cause."

Psychology states that parents merely fighting with each other constantly have a lot of negative impact on their children. That's why when children behaves poorly and have bad behavior at school, in many cases, therapists suggest repairing the relationship between the parents.

 

[HAYAO]

I'm not disputing that at all. Nor am I disputing that education needs to take that into account. (Although "education" does not necessarily mean "publicly funded education"; whether the government is really the best entity to be providing education is, IMO, a valid question, but it would be a topic for a separate thread.)

But those aren't the questions we're discussing in this thread. We're discussing assessments, how they should be done, and who should do them. We're not discussing what things people need to learn. That's what I was discussing in my post, and your response didn't actually address anything I said.

We're talking about schools assessing students and using the results of those assessments to make decisions about the students.

It's completely relevant to what you asked. But let's try to make that clear for you.

Basically, how would third-party know the specifics of the student and the content of the class they're interested in making assessment, whether that may be job interviewers or some government making funds? For example, if you are looking for a bricklayer, what are you going to assess your children with? Obviously, most educational system don't have "bricklaying" as a subject. Bricklayers will have to look at other potentially relevant subjects. The question is then, would the bricklayers know how to assess those potentially relevant subjects, and if so then to what extent? And another conflicting question is, let's say for example would metal molders have the same assessment for the same subjects?

My answer to that is, it wouldn't really be any different from teachers assessing their own children. The reason is because that's what learning "base knowledge" means. Like I said, our world is so complicated and that we need "base knowledge" of the world in order to live in it. If we are talking about "base knowledge" then bricklayers or metal molders are no better in assessing the student than the teachers (or possibly worse). Regional standardized test correlates well with the grades children have in their class. It doesn't make much difference. If you have problem with the "assessments" then you will have to start arguing the legitimacy of the actual content that school teaches, which is why I posted what I posted above.

If you "truly" want to assess the bricklaying potential or metal molding potential of students, then you would have to have to have those students actually go through internships. But that has nothing to do with subjects that are taught in school in most countries.

 

[hmmm27]

Knee-jerk reaction to the leftism of The Week (or maybe that's just California) aside, it sounds - at least potentially - like a good idea.

Somebody might want to check me on this, but it looks like they're going back to a performance-based system ; the major difference between that and say 50 years ago is that "class participation", etc. is now a separate grade, collated from all the student's courses. Yes ?

 

[symbolipoint]

Found here is a possible source of some of the mismatch of experiences:

Germany, these names don't translate 1:1 because the system is different. What I called high school was up to class 13, i.e. school up to the typical age of 18-19. What I called university was university - what would now be BSc and MSc. For my PhD I didn't have any classes or homework.

In there can be inferred many reasons why experiences and opinions among people may not match-up.

 

[PeterDonis]

how would third-party know the specifics of the student and the content of the class they're interested in making assessment, whether that may be job interviewers or some government making funds?

By assessing the prospective employee themselves, using whatever specific assessment was most relevant to what they were looking for.

if you are looking for a bricklayer, what are you going to assess your children with?

If I'm looking for a bricklayer to do some work around my house, how is that even relevant to assessing my children?

If I think my child might want to be a bricklayer, I don't want to give them some canned assessment, I want to encourage them to try things that will show them whether they are interested in bricklaying and whether they think they can get good at it. The time for a standardized assessment is when they are considering applying for a bricklaying job, but that will come much later.

most educational system don't have "bricklaying" as a subject.

Then it would seem, if bricklayers are going to be needed, that that first priority ought to be remedying this defect of the educational system. The most obvious way to do that would be for companies that want to hire bricklayers and are concerned about a shortage of applicants to start apprenticeship programs, using whatever aptitude assessments they think are relevant. You mention internships later in your post, but you comment that that is irrelevant to what most school systems teach, as though that were a problem that would need to be fixed. I think it's just the natural course of events in a free society, if central planners don't mess with it.

The question is then, would the bricklayers know how to assess those potentially relevant subjects, and if so then to what extent? And another conflicting question is, let's say for example would metal molders have the same assessment for the same subjects?

These are all questions that you and I are not the right people to answer. The right people to answer these questions are the people that want to either be metal molders or bricklayers, or hire metal molders or bricklayers. Or the parents of children that might be interested in learning how to be metal molders or bricklayers. Or entrepreneurs that might want to try selling education and assessment services to any or all of those categories of people.

Your underlying assumption seems to be that one centralized entity needs to come up with answers to all these questions. I don't see why that's necessary at all, and furthermore, I think doing it that way is likely to give suboptimal results.

our world is so complicated and that we need "base knowledge" of the world in order to live in it

I agree. But again, that's about content, not assessment. I thought we were talking about assessment in this thread. How does the fact that the world is complicated translate into some centralized entity needing to assess every student and have the results of those assessments drive decisions about that student's future?

 

[HAYAO]

By assessing the prospective employee themselves, using whatever specific assessment was most relevant to what they were looking for.

Yeah, but what do you think they actually do? Do you think all of the student undergo some sort of internship? What do you think they actually do in the interview? Well, I know because I have a friend (more like a boxing gym mate) that is a bricklayer (with his father owning the company) and I asked him how people become a bricklayer. But it's basically just an interview, and certification as a bricklayer comes AFTER being accepted. That assessment did take into account grades during one's high-school days, but they ADMITTED that grades are not as relevant, so it was okay as long as the grades weren't bad. That's the kind of assessment these people do.

If I'm looking for a bricklayer to do some work around my house, how is that even relevant to assessing my children?

If I think my child might want to be a bricklayer, I don't want to give them some canned assessment, I want to encourage them to try things that will show them whether they are interested in bricklaying and whether they think they can get good at it. The time for a standardized assessment is when they are considering applying for a bricklaying job, but that will come much later.

I miswrote that. I didn't mean to say "your" children. I meant to say just students in general. My bad. So please replace what I wrote above.

Then it would seem, if bricklayers are going to be needed, that that first priority ought to be remedying this defect of the educational system. The most obvious way to do that would be for companies that want to hire bricklayers and are concerned about a shortage of applicants to start apprenticeship programs, using whatever aptitude assessments they think are relevant. You mention internships later in your post, but you comment that that is irrelevant to what most school systems teach, as though that were a problem that would need to be fixed. I think it's just the natural course of events in a free society, if central planners don't mess with it.

In most cases at least in Japan, internship is worth 1 or 2 optional credits in high-school and I believe it doesn't have a grade. It's pass or no pass. Same goes with teachers license where I was obliged 3 weeks (2 weeks in some cases) of internship at an actual school, but there is no grade for that. It's pass or no pass, and the accommodating school decides that. If there is a grading, then who ever in charge of internship should have the right to grade that particular credit, but we don't have that system yet if my knowledge is up to date. But that's definitely a possibility.

But other grades have nothing to do with that, nor should it do anything with internship. And bricklayers and metal molders should have nothing to do with the grading and assessment of, for example, math, in which bricklayers and metal molders are not necessarily a better assessment party of such subject, EVEN IF that is what they are interested in.

These are all questions that you and I are not the right people to answer. The right people to answer these questions are the people that want to either be metal molders or bricklayers, or hire metal molders or bricklayers. Or the parents of children that might be interested in learning how to be metal molders or bricklayers. Or entrepreneurs that might want to try selling education and assessment services to any or all of those categories of people.

That's far from the point. Bricklayers and metal molders are merely examples.

Your underlying assumption seems to be that one centralized entity needs to come up with answers to all these questions. I don't see why that's necessary at all, and furthermore, I think doing it that way is likely to give suboptimal results.

Well, your assumption is that your assumption about me is always right. You have been doing that for quite numerous time in this conversation. It might be an effective technique in discussion to illegitimize and attack the opponent but it doesn't do any good for the discussion itself.

I have no such assumption. So your point there is completely illegitimate.

I agree. But again, that's about content, not assessment. I thought we were talking about assessment in this thread. How does the fact that the world is complicated translate into some centralized entity needing to assess every student and have the results of those assessments drive decisions about that student's future?

The content and assessment comes together. I don't know how you think they are unrelated. If you bring a new content then you also have to bring an assessment method. If you bring a new type of assessment, then you also have to think about how much that applies to the contents. As such, every time you bring up "assessment", you also have to think about the content.

World is complicated and you going to just let everyone decide freely about how to assess them? Teachers aren't allowed to grade their students based on certain criteria? What kind of turmoil are you looking for?

 

[PeterDonis]

@HAYAO at this point I think we're just talking past each other. You don't seem to me to be responding to what I'm actually saying, and I don't seem to you to be responding to what you're actually saying. So I'll just bow out of this subthread.