Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!oliveb!sun!livesey
From: livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Bias on IQ tests
Message-ID: <49691@sun.uucp>
Date: 15 Apr 88 21:51:50 GMT
References: <3943@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <73600018@uiucdcsp> <48986@sun.uucp> <259@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Mtn View, CA
Lines: 34

In article <259@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk>, mmh@ivax.doc.ic.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:
> 
> The more sinister plans are the introduction of regular national tests.
> As Jon himself admitted in his previous posting, such tests can be subverted
> by the different motivations of teachers and pupils (I think we differed on
> exactly who motivated who) and by the existence of books coaching you on 
> how to pass the tests.


	No, don't draw me in support of your ideas by misquoting me.   I said
nothing at all about teachers' motivations subverting tests.   The single
thing I said about teachers is that if they follow a political agenda in one
school system, they will follow it in another.

	I can see nothing in the least sinister in having national tests
which are graded equally across the country.   The xSAT and xCAT tests in
the US work well enough to show that.   I think you have totally misunderstood
the function of books of previous tests.   The idea is not to subvert the
tests, but to allow everyone an equal opportunity to rehearse.

	I can think of nothing better than a series of tests which allow
parents to track the progress of their own child from year to year, coupled
with publication of the scores achieved by individual schools, allowing
parents to choose which school is the best for their own child.    I can
quite understand that some teachers would have a problem with the publication
of results which have previously been confidential, especially if those
results compare the performance of one set of teachers with another, but
after all, the function of an education system is to educate pupils, not to
provide a sheltered career for teachers.

	If Maggie can get herself re-elected three times with that agenda,
it sounds as though a good number of people in the UK agree.

jon.