Atrocities (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)

Atrocities

Common Core State Standards Development Work Group and Feedback Group Announced
 Ohanian Comment: This, of course, comes as no surprise. You can keep track of this group at <a href="http://www.corestandards.org"> http://www.corestandards.org/</a>. You may look at this list of names, recognize someone's name whose work you admire, and feel a sense of relief. That's a mistake. No good will come of this and we should fight it with ever sense of our being. I sit here with tears streaming down my face. I think this marks the end of public schools as we know them. And instead of protesting, our professional organizations are joining in. There are too many references to Achieve on this site to list. In brief, with IBM CEO Lou Gerstner leading the way, Achieve was created in 1996 by the nation's governors and corporate leaders to tell schools what to do, namely put more rigor into the schools. Edward Rust, Jr. sits on the board. Here are the funders: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Boeing Company Brookhill Foundation Carnegie Corp. of New York The GE Foundation IBM Corp. Intel Foundation Lumina Nationwide Noyce Foundation The Prudential Foundation State Farm Insurance Companies Washington Mutual Foundation The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation I've provided some of the connections between and among people working on the English Language Arts Standards and Achieve. Many of the math people's connections are identified in this press release. News Release Contact: Jodi Omear, 202-624-5346 Office of Communications NGA Center, CCSSO Unveil New Web site; Outline Process to Develop Common English-language Arts and Mathematics Standards WASHINGTONâ€”The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) today announced the names of the experts serving on the Common Core State Standards Development Work Group and Feedback Group and provided more detailed information on the college and career ready standards development process. The college and career ready standards are expected to be ready for comment July 2009. The K-12 standards work is expected to be completed in December 2009. The two groups also unveiled a new Web site at www.corestandards.org. This Web site is designed to provide information as the process continues. Forty-nine states and territories have joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The initiative is being jointly led by the NGA Center and CCSSO in partnership with Achieve, Inc, ACT and the College Board. It builds directly on recent efforts of leading organizations and states that have focused on developing college-and career-ready standards and ensures that these standards can be internationally benchmarked to top-performing countries around the world. "This initiative is a significant and historic opportunity for states to collectively accelerate and drive education reform so that all children graduate from high school ready for college, work and success in the global economy," said <a href="http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.html?id=8647"> Dane Linn</a>, <a href="http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:c8BM376piNUJ:www.nga.org/Files/pdf/070322TESTIMONYLINN.PDF+%22Dane+Linn%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a">director</a> of the NGA Center's Education Division. "These standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills." "It is time for us as states to challenge the education system and finally answer the question, "What will it take for every child to be successful?" stated Gene Wilhoit, executive director of CCSSO [former Kentucky state commissioner of education".] "Fewer, clearer, and higher standards will help us get there." The Standards Development Work Group is currently engaged in determining and writing the college and career readiness standards in English-language arts and mathematics. This group is composed of content experts from Achieve, Inc., ACT, and the College Board. This group will be expanded later in the year to include additional experts to develop the standards for grades K-12 in English language arts and mathematics. Additionally, CCSSO and the NGA Center have selected an independent facilitator and an independent writer as well as resource advisors to support each content area work group throughout the standards development process. The Work Group';s deliberations will be confidential throughout the process. States and national education organizations will have an opportunity to review and provide evidence-based feedback on the draft documents throughout the process. The members of the mathematics Work Group are: * Sara Clough, Director, Elementary and Secondary School Programs, Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * Phil Daro, Senior Fellow, Americas Choice * Susan K. Eddins, Educational Consultant, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (Retired) * Kaye Forgione, Senior Associate and Team Leader for Mathematics, Achieve * John Kraman, Associate Director, Research, Achieve * Marci Ladd, Mathematics Consultant, The College Board & Senior Manager and Mathematics Content Lead, Academic Benchmarks * William McCallum, University Distinguished Professor and Head, Department of Mathematics, The University of Arizona &Mathematics Consultant, Achieve * Sherri Miller, Assistant Vice President, Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * Ken Mullen, Senior Program Development Associateâ€”Mathematics, Elementary and Secondary School Programs, Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * Robin O'Callaghan, Senior Director, Mathematics, Research and Development, The College Board * Andrew Schwartz, Assessment Manager, Research and Development, The College Board * Laura McGiffert Slover, Vice President, Content and Policy Research, Achieve * Douglas Sovde, Senior Associate, Mathematics, Achieve * Natasha Vasavada, Senior Director, Standards and Curriculum Alignment Services, Research and Development, The College Board * Jason Zimba, Faculty Member, Physics, Mathematics, and the Center for the Advancement of Public Action, Bennington College and Cofounder, Student Achievement Partners Members of the English-language Arts Work Group are: * Sara Clough, Director, Elementary and Secondary School Programs, Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * David Coleman, Founder,<a href="http://www.tepcharter.org/leadership.php"> Student Achievement Partners</a>. Coleman is founder of Grow Network, a part of McGraw-Hill Education. * Sally Hampton, Senior Fellow for Literacy, America's Choice [Director of Research on Curriculum and Instruction and English Language Arts for the National Center on Education and the Economy, creators of <a href="http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.html?id=3258"> America's Choice</a>]. * Joel Harris, Director, English Language Arts Curriculum and Standards, Research and Development, The College Board [Put "College Board" into a search on this site and you will come up with 299 entries.] * Beth Hart, Senior Assessment Specialist, Research and Development, The College Board * John Kraman, Associate Director, Research, Achieve [Technical advisor for Education Week on <a href="http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=554"> Diplomas Count 2009</a>.] * Laura McGiffert Slover, Vice President, Content and Policy Research, Achieve * Nina Metzner, Senior Test Development Associateâ€”Language Arts, Elementary and Secondary School Programs, Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * Sherri Miller, Assistant Vice President, Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * Sandy Murphy, Professor Emeritus, University of California â€“ Davis * Jim Patterson, Senior Program Development Associateâ€”Language Arts, Elementary and Secondary School Programs, Development, Education Division, ACT, Inc. * Sue Pimentel, Co-Founder, <a href="http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=117"> [StandardsWork</a>; English Language Arts Consultant, Achieve.] * Natasha Vasavada, Senior Director, Standards and Curriculum Alignment Services, Research and Development, The College Board * Martha Vockley, Principal and Founder, VockleyLang, LLC , [a communications and marketing firm.] Also, as a step in the standards development process, the NGA Center and CCSSO are overseeing the work of a Feedback Group. The role of this Feedback Group is to provide information backed by research to inform the standards development process by offering expert input on draft documents. Final decisions regarding the common core standards document will be made by the Standards Development Work Group. The Feedback Group will play an advisory role, not a decision-making role in the process. [emphasis added] Members of the mathematics Feedback Group are: * George Andrews, The Pennsylvania State University, Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics * Hyman Bass, University of Michigan, Samuel Eilenberg Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics & Mathematics Education * David Bressoud, Macalester College, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics & President, Mathematical Association of America * John Dossey, Illinois State University, Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics Emeritus * Scott Eddins, Tennessee Department of Education, Mathematics Coordinator & President, Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics (ASSM) * Brian Gong, The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Executive Director * Roger Howe, Yale University, Professor of Mathematics * Henry S. Kepner, Jr., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Professor, Curriculum & Instruction and Mathematical Sciences * Suzanne Lane, University of Pittsburgh, Professor in the Research Methodology Program, School of Education * Robert Linn, University of Colorado, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, and Co-Director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) * Jim Milgram, Stanford University, Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus, Department of Mathematics * Fabio Milner, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University, Director, Mathematics for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education * Roxy Peck, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Associate Dean, College of Science and Mathematics and Professor of Statistics * Nora Ramirez, TODOS: Mathematics for ALL, President * William Schmidt, Michigan State University, College of Education, University Distinguished Professor * Uri Treisman, University of Texas, Professor of Mathematics and Public Affairs & Executive Director, Charles A. Dana Center * Vern Williams, Mathematics Teacher, HW Longfellow Middle School, Fairfax County, Virginia Public Schools * W. Stephen Wilson, Johns Hopkins University, Professor of Mathematics Members of the English-language Arts Feedback Group are: * Peter Afflerbach, University of Maryland, Professor * Arthur Applebee, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Professor & Chair, Department of Educational Theory & Practice, School of Education [Reviewer, Achieve's American Diploma Project.] * Mark Bauerlein, Emory University, Professor of English [Employed by Achieve as Writer/Reviewer for English and Communications Benchmarks, Grades 4 â€“ 12; reviewer, Achieve's American Diploma Project.] * Mary Bozik, University of Northern Iowa, Professor, Communication Studies * Don Deshler, University of Kansas, Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education & Director, Center for Research on Learning * Checker Finn, Fordham Institute Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University & President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute [The Thomas B, Fordham Foundation, which Finn heads, was, in 2002, with Achieve, the Education Trust, and the National Alliance of Business, co-sponsor of the American Diploma Project.] * Brian Gong, The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Executive Director * Carol Jago, University of California â€“ Los Angeles, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) President-elect, California Reading and Literature Project [Employed by Achieve as Writer/Reviewer for English and Communications Benchmarks, Grades 4 â€“ 12.] * Jeanneine Jones, University of North Carolina â€“ Charlotte, Professor * Michael Kamil, Stanford University, Professor, School of Education * Suzanne Lane, University of Pittsburgh, Professor in the Research Methodology Program, School of Education [College Boardâ€™s Advisory Committee on Research.] * Carol Lee, Northwestern University, Professor of Education and Social Policy [bio at Northwestern states "Lee is active in the school reform movement in Chicago Public Schools."] * Robert Linn, University of Colorado, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, and Co-Director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) * Dolores Perin, Columbia University, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education * Tim Shanahan, University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor, Urban Education [Employed by Achieve as Writer/Reviewer for English and Communications Benchmarks, Grades 4 â€“ 12.] * Catherine Snow, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor * Doranna Tindle, Friendship Public Charter Schools, Instructional Performance Coach [Employed by Achieve as Writer/Reviewer for English and Communications Benchmarks, Grades 4 â€“ 12.] The final step in the development of these standards is the creation of an expert Validation Committee comprised of national and international experts on standards. This group will review the process and substance of the common core state standards to ensure they are research and evidence-based and will validate state adoption on the common core standards. Members of the committee will be selected by governors and chiefs of the participating states; nominations are forthcoming. Additionally, the NGA Center and CCSSO have formed a National Policy Forum of education experts to share ideas, gather input and inform the common core state standards initiative. This forum is intended as a way to establish a shared understanding of the scope and elements of the common core state standards initiative and coordinate implementation and adoption. ### Founded in 1908, the National Governors Association (NGA) is the collective voice of the nation's governors and one of Washington, D.C.'s most respected public policy organizations. Its members are the governors of the 50 states, three territories and two commonwealths. NGA provides governors and their senior staff members with services that range from representing states on Capitol Hill and before the Administration on key federal issues to developing and implementing innovative solutions to public policy challenges through the NGA Center for Best Practices. For more information, visit www.nga.org. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a nonpartisan [sic], nationwide, nonprofit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity, and five U.S. extra-state jurisdictions. CCSSO provides leadership, advocacy, and technical assistance on major educational issues. The Council seeks member consensus on major educational issues and expresses their views to civic and professional organizations, federal agencies, Congress, and the public. www.ccsso.org

— Press Release
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
2009-07-01
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/07/01/36standards.h28.html?tkn=XXXFjWPmAG3IjPKNq4xngSQDy8AcPPB3dNqr

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan Calls Texas High School Teacher Kyle Brenner to Discuss Post on Department's "Listening and Learning Tour" Blog
 Are you posting on the Listening & Learning Tour blog on raising standards? Waiting for a call from Arne? So far, they've received only 400 comments to the questions Arne asked: Many states in America are independently considering adopting internationally-benchmarked, college and career-ready standards. Is raising standards a good idea? How should we go about it? What a hoax! States are considering adopting these standards because Arne says they won't get Federal millions if they don't. Frankly, I wish Arne would call Wilma Ralls, who begins her comment thusly: <blockquote> Fifty percent of our population drops out of school before they can finish high school. This is NOT a failure of EDUCATION. This is a FAILURE of our ECONOMY! When every child is raised in a healthy environment, EDUCATION will be possible. Until then, our educational system will continue providing children raised in wealthy communities the activities required to get into their â€œlegacyâ€ university, along with other bad motivations picked up by the legacy of their â€œunequal, mis-managed, non-socializedâ€ educational experiences, while the rest limp through life not ever really completely engaging or benefiting from conventional society. The other half of the population has gone through life in the US, at least for the past 30 years, continually being left further and further behind economically, socially, politically, health-wise and in every other area of life. Add that to a school system stuck in the 18th century and you have, yes, FAILURE! Our schools fail our students and they fail our society but until everyone in our society has an equal chance to benefit from our economy, there is not much that can be done to improve our schools with the meager resources they receive. </blockquote> Or Poster 202: <blockquote>How about writing standards for politicians and testing them to death? </blockquote> This press release says one can read the Texas teacher's full comment at #91. Someone at the DOE can't count. It's not there. . . nor is it nearby. Nor is it at 191. FOR RELEASE: June 30, 2009 Contact: Sandra Abrevaya sandra.abrevaya@ed.gov (202) 401-1576 U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today called Kyle Brenner, a world history teacher and debate coach at Princeton High School in Princeton, Texas to discuss comments Brenner recently posted on the U.S. Department of Education's <a href="http://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/topic/listening-tour"> Listening & Learning Tour blog</a>. As part of the Listening & Learning Tour, Duncan is traveling to 15 or more states to solicit feedback from a broad group of stakeholders around federal education policy in anticipation of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The tour is gathering input on the Obama administration's education agenda, including early childhood, higher standards, teacher quality, workforce development and higher education. The Department created the Listening & learning Tour blog on May 11th, 2009 to expand the reach of the conversation. Since Duncan's first post, the Department has helped facilitate the conversation by featuring questions on raising standards, education challenges in rural areas, using data to inform instruction and turning around low-performing schools. The blog also features posts from senior Department officials who are accompanying Duncan on the tour stops around the country. To date more than 400 comments have been posted by individuals from across the country. To join the conversation, visit: <a href="http://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/topic/join-the-conversation"> http://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/topic/join-the-conversation</a> . To read Brenner's entry in its entirety, visit: http://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/2009/05/secretary-arne-duncan -takes-listening-tour-online-invites-comments-on-raising-standards/ #comment-91 . The following is an excerpt from Brenner's post: "Teacher Pay: This often cited problem with education occurs in every state. Consider this, the smartest, brightest, and most gifted of America's graduates find careers that often pay into the six figures. If we raise teacher pay to match these fields think of the possibilities of new young teachers who will choose this career path. But with high pay should come increase teacher standards".

— Press Release
U. S. Department of Education
2009-06-30

Burning Moms use humor to push for education changes in California
 It's good news that Moms are fighting against the inequities of school booster clubs, which allow people of privilege to finance their schools and ignore all the others. By Pamela Martineau They think of themselves as street-theater activists who are willing to get in the face of the powers-that-be to bring equity to the state's school funding system. So between driving kids to soccer practice and helping with homework, these moms are hooking up online to organize their next rally or blogging about what bill in the Legislature might bring transparency to education finance. At the Capitol last week, a loosely formed coalition called the Burning Moms staged its second annual rally at the state Capitol to protest school funding cuts. Instead of marching with placards and chanting slogans, the Burning Moms and their kids built sculptures out of trash and danced to rewritten rock tunes performed by a band called the Angry, Tired Teachers. Their goal is to make political activism fun and irreverent, while shining a spotlight on a public school system in crisis. The name Burning Moms is a riff on the annual nonconformist celebration Burning Man. "We see ourselves as somewhat edgier than the PTA," said Burning Mom Deb McCurdy, who drove to Sacramento from Pasadena with her two kids for the rally. "We're willing to take somewhat more of a risk to demonstrate our passion." Burning Moms co-founder, stand-up comic and author Sandra Tsing Loh, 47, of San Francisco, likens the grass-roots movement to a "string of terrorist cells." The Burning Moms (who also include a few dads) will blog online about an issue then decide to show up to protest or help a group organize. Loh says they'll act like members of an underground railroad â€“ one mom will pick up another mom at the airport then link with still more moms who will drive people to different events. "It's informal and cell-like," said Loh, who also hosts a talk show on National Public Radio on various topics. A few years ago, Loh developed a comedic monologue and later wrote a book called Mom on Fire about her efforts to find a decent public school for her kindergarten-age daughter in San Francisco. That effort morphed into the Burning Moms, as more mothers contacted her saying they were experiencing similar frustrations with public schools. Now, the moms regularly chat on their Facebook page or on the site askamagnetyenta.wordpress .com about where to find the best magnet schools or to complain about state and national education policies. Moms from other states also have contacted the group. Burning Moms rallied at first lady Maria Shriver's conference on women in November to protest its lack of discussion of public education. The group also has sent members to various schools across the state to make presentations about proposed state funding cuts or budget fixes their group supports. California's beleaguered public education system is a crisis they believe threatens the future of their kids and therefore engenders their oft-referenced "burning" rage. (Watch their video on www.theburningmoms.org.) They say they applaud (and some still belong to) the well-meaning PTA and other booster groups whose members bake cookies and organize fundraisers to raise money for their kids' public schools. But Burning Moms believe they need to start working to better all kids' schools, not just the ones that are fortunate enough to have active booster clubs. It's an equity issue, they say. "I feel we're kind of trying to take it to another level where we're not just working locally," said Cece Tsou of Los Angeles, who attended Tuesday's rally with her partner, Rebekah Fleischaker, and the couple's second-grade son. "We, as a family, feel it's our obligation to participate before you bitch," Fleischaker said. Several Burning Moms said they brought their kids to the Capitol on Tuesday to show them that they, too, have a political voice and that the democratic process is open to kids as well as adults. Many Burning Moms also took their kids to visit their lawmakers after the rally. Rebecca Constantine, 45, of Los Angeles, is a founding member of Burning Moms. She said she was a former PTA president, but thought parents needed a "little feistier" alternative. "I felt that the PTA is not that effective. It's more old hat," said Constantine. "I feel that people don't really listen to the PTA." She and other moms danced on the west steps of the Capitol to a Rolling Stones-inspired song they call "I Can't Get No Funding Satisfaction." Before that, group members and their kids discussed their concerns about public education during a special legislative hearing sponsored by state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-East Los Angeles. Romero is sponsoring Senate Bill 604, which would add a preamble to the state's education code that seeks to outline the education code's "guiding principles." She hopes to launch a statewide effort to get input from students, parents and educators about the mission of public education prior to the crafting of the preamble. "Most of our public schools, they're not public schools anymore," said Joann Palmer of West Hollywood. "Booster clubs are expected to raise money to pay for school supplies, field trips and other things."

— Pamela Martineau
Sacramento Bee
2009-06-28

Who is missing from a panel of educational insiders?
 by ParaPrez <a href="http://education.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/whats-the-best-use-of-stimulus.php"> National Journal</a> has assembled a panel of educational insiders to answer the question. Although heavily weighted toward the conservative political Right, they have included some like Linda Darling-Hammond, Dennis Van Roekel, Randi Weingarten and Monty Neill to counter balance Rod Paige, Joe Williams, Andy Rotherham, Fred Hess and the gobs of CEOs and corporate funded policy institute wonks. Missing? A teacher. Any teacher. One teacher. I guess weâ€™re not considered inside enough.

— Fred Klonsky
blog
2009-07-30
http://preaprez.wordpress.com/

Firefighters Are Now Law Clerks
 This case cuts to the core of why an obsession with and a reliance on standardized testing is so detrimental to our school systems. It explains why the current Obama/Duncan policy is such a disastrous. by Sam Smith The real problem in the Ricci v. DeStefano case is neither the white nor the black firefighters but the law and its technocratic application. For the past six years - as the lawyers have had their fun - no one of either ethnicity has been promoted in the New Haven fire department. This is not a good way to run a fire department or improve ethnic relations. Yet because we have become so accustomed to depending upon legal and technocratic solutions to our problems, because so many assume that verbal skills equal pragmatic competence, few even bother to ask whether there might be a better approach to such situations, such as mediation and arbitration or subduing our obsession with tests. I was never a firefighter but I was the operations officer on a Coast Guard cutter that handled aids to navigation and heavy weather search & rescue. Among the men on our ship were a number who hadn't even completed high school. I knew this not because they were any less competent but only because they were studying for the GED and had asked me for help. And at the top of the list of qualified officers on our ship was not this Ivy League educated product of crash officer candidate training (including 40 tests in 13 weeks) but two warrant officers - enlisted men who had fleeted up to officer status through their experience and performance far more than their test taking skill. If these officers had been trying to get promoted in the New Haven Fire Department, their experience and performance would have been submerged in examinations designed by large corporations profiteering on government and business assessment addiction. It is, after all, so much easier to read a test score than to judge the true nature of someone's performance. Which is why we are giving up educating our kids in favor of just preparing them for tests. And which why our public vocational training is so poor. We assume everyone is going to be a law clerk or other desk bound manipulator of words and data. But running a ship or being a firefighter is quite a different matter than being school superintendent, politician or lawyer. As Joseph Conrad noted, "Of all the living creatures upon land and sea, it is ships alone that cannot be taken in by barren pretenses." Firefighters similarly deal daily with unforgiving reality. Yet these days they also face exams that, in the case of the New Haven firefighters, cost some of them upwards of a $1,000 for study materials, tutoring and similar preparation. As the white firefighters put it, "We gave up three months of our lives to intense study and preparation during the three-month study period preceding the exams. We studied many hours a day and rarely saw or spent little time with our families and friends during this period. Some of us took leave from second jobs, or our wives did so to assume childcare responsibilities while we studied, so the economic loss was even greater than the out-of-pocket costs of the exams." The black applicants struggled, too. Said Donald Day, former regional director of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, "Historically, as African-Americans, we don't do as well on strictly written exams." Reported the New Haven Independent, "Oral exams are fairer, he argued, but they're also more expensive to administer. He said that written exams can't really determine who will make a good leader. 'Some of the worst officers you/ve ever had were book smart officers.'" To get some idea of what these guys were up against, I checked out one of the cram programs firefighters use. Bearing in mind that you are looking to hire someone who can get you out of a smoked filled, fifth floor bedroom, consider the following test taking advice: |||| When evaluating answer choices, the words to be on the lookout for are the little words that tend to either "harden" or "soften" statements. Words which "harden" statements, and make them difficult to defend, are strong words like: all, every, always, will, must, certainly, invariably, surely, no one, ever, any, no matter, nothing, etc. Words which "soften" statements, and make them easy to defend, are words like: some, many, sometimes, may, possibly, generally, probably, usually, often, can, could, might, occasionally, etc. . . When answering test questions, you must base your answer solely on the information contained in the test question. The test for a Firefighter requires no previous knowledge of the job. The test questions do not have to reflect the way the job is really done or the actual procedures of the Fire Department. . . Problems arise when a person who is familiar with procedures of the fire department encounters a test question based on something that contradicts actual practices. It is in this kind of situation that you must ignore actual practices and answer on the basis of what the test question says. For example, you might know that kitchen stove fires are usually extinguished with a portable fire extinguisher; but a test question might describe a stove fire being put out with a fire hose attached to a hydrant. In this kind of test situation, never mind the actual practice; go by the information in the question. . . A skillful test maker tries to make two or three of the answer choices look very good. All the answer choices may contain some truth, which make them tempting. Or all may look wrong. But the test maker has to have put some detail into the "fact pattern" of the question to justify the claim that one of these answers is better than the others. If reviewing the answer choices themselves has not helped, the clue to which answer is correct is likely to be in the question stem or "fact pattern" rather than in the answer choices. So go back to the question stem and the fact pattern the look for the deciding factor. |||| This is not advice for someone seeking to clerk for a judge or win some cable quiz show but for someone who is expected to stop fires and save lives. Yet, "the test questions do not have to reflect the way the job is really done or the actual procedures of the Fire Department." And: "Problems arise when a person who is familiar with procedures of the fire department encounters a test question based on something that contradicts actual practices. It is in this kind of situation that you must ignore actual practices and answer on the basis of what the test question says." Somehow I feel a lot less safe. The New Haven case is a mess caused by infatuation with the law, mistaking verbal dexterity for practical skill, and an obsession with examinations. It has protected neither people's safety nor their civil liberties. It would, for example, be interesting to know how much has been paid lawyers (especially white ones) in this case, because I suspect it might have supported increasing the number of job openings so that black firefighters could have been hired along with the higher scoring whites. As older white officers retired, the bubble could deflate again. Black mayor Walter Washington used this approach to integrate the whole DC government during the 1970s and no one got mad. Mediation might have worked out a deal where most of the whites got promoted along with some of the blacks, with the remaining whites with passing scores being placed at the top for the list for the next promotion. Such approaches could have gotten New Haven through its immediate crisis, which it could avoid repeating by developing a much fairer way of choosing officers for its fire department. A successful multiethnic community is one that works well for everyone. It is not one in which government puts members of one of the most honorable trades at each other's throats.

— Sam Smith
Progressive Review
2009-06-29
http://prorev.com/2009/06/flotsam-jetsam-firefighters-are-not-law.html

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