9486 in the collection  

Oh good, more tests

Brilliant.

Brilliant. And funny too.

Why is it that education reporters don't get it
but other folks do?

NOTE: This journalist cares about the
conflicts of interest. This journalist
care about children.

by Jon Carroll

Oh, here's a cheerful announcement: The
College Board people say they will
introduce a test for eighth-graders to help
them prepare for the rigors
of, well, ninth grade. Lee Jones, a College
Board vice president, said:
"This is not at all a pre-pre-pre SAT. It's a
diagnostic tool to provide
information about students' strengths and
weaknesses."

Of course, the SATS themselves have long
been touted as a diagnostic tool
to provide students with information about
strengths and weaknesses - and
then ruin their lives by denying them access to
the universities whose
degrees often ensure financial security for
their lucky graduates. The
College Board people, of course, deplore the
idea that any college should
use a test designed to demonstrate fitness for
higher education to
determine who is fit for a college education.

"We think colleges should consider the whole
student," they say, while
preparing exams that do not measure the whole
student. Submitting the
grades on these exams is often mandatory for
college admission. They are
such a big part of American adolescence that
many adults can tell you
their SAT scores long after they've forgotten
the names of their children.

Some people think that the College Board has
a kind of charming, bumbling
incompetence that would go well in a Gilbert
and Sullivan operetta. But
the organization has its detractors too.

At a news conference, Jones was asked why
the new exam, called ReadiStep,
was necessary at all. Oh, he said, many
educators had asked for it,
pleaded for it. When pressed, he provided two
names: Susan Rusk, the
coordinator of counseling for the Washoe County
School District in Reno,
and James R. Choike, a professor of mathematics
at Oklahoma State
University.

Rusk, it turns outs, is on the College
Board's board of trustees, and
Choike helped develop ReadiStep. I think Jones
should sue whoever prepared
him for that news conference. "Can't we find
anyone who doesn't have a
direct conflict of interest?" "Don't worry,
Lee, the press will never
check."

Somehow, no one in the news story I read
(written by Sara Rimer in the New
York Times) speculated on the real reason
that the College Board might
want to institute this new test: to make more
money. You're in the testing
business, economic times are hard: What's the
one solution that
immediately occurs? A new test! Who hasn't been
tested yet?

Eighth-graders! In today's hypercompetitive
college environment,
educational anxiety has already penetrated the
tweener set - why not
exploit that anxiety with a new test, a test
that will teach them how to
take the test that they have to take before the
test that they really have
to take?

And of course, some students are already
angling for advanced placement
courses or admission to specialized prep
schools or even the opportunity
to go to Costa Rica to build latrines (which
seems like the Band Camp of
the 21st century), and if they nail the
ReadiStep, then their steps can be
extremely ready and light and dashing lightly
up to the golden throne.

They could also be sitting on the dock of
the bay, watching the tide roll
away, but try telling that to an admissions
officer.

You know what would be even better? College
Board schools, franchised
locations run by the College Board itself that
would make sure that each
and every pupil knows exactly how to take each
and every SAT and pre-SAT
and pre-pre-SAT and the SACT (Standardized
Advanced Coloring Test). These
camps could be in special places far away from
the distracting influences
of the city, out in the piney woods, and kids
could mingle with their own
kind and play baseball or field hockey,
depending on gender.

And then by 12th grade, we'd have a race of
supermen, that is, a small
group of exceptionally talented youngsters, and
they could go to all the
colleges (also, perhaps, run by the College
Board), and of course these
colleges would cost $100,000 a year but, what
the heck, guaranteed
placement in Fortune 500 companies or white-
shoe law firms is worth at
least that much. Wouldn't the country run
better that way?

Oh, and the parents would be so happy. They
could all have bumper stickers
that read "My Child Is Better Than Your Child
in Ways You Can't Even
Imagine." And, when the parents got older,
maybe they could move into
planned communities and become, as it were,
College Boarders, and be
vested with College Board stock, and their kids
could one day, dare I say
it, rule the world.

Perhaps I am becoming overexcited. That's
what they said when I complained
about subprime mortgages. (Which I did, by the
way, last year. You could
look it up.)

You want some party fun? Ask people what
their SAT scores were. Everyone
will know. Some of them will lie, but they'll
all remember.

Salt block in the garage. Disconnect garage
door light. Gutting and
disposal will be a little messy. I think a few
heavy-duty garbage bags and
the absorbent material they use for oil and
hydraulic spills for the blood
ought to do it. Not like you're going to have
Columbo investigating the
case of the missing.

jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon
Carroll is the National Society of Newspaper
Columnists' 2009 Ernie Pyle Lifetime
Achievement Award recipient.

San Francisco Chronicle
2008-10-27
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/10/27/DDK113N8JS.DTL

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INDEX OF OUTRAGES

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