A Postscript About Standardized Tests And College Admission

By Author: Blown
Total Articles: 39
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What the research about writing makes quite clear is that in their understandable fear of dire consequences from poor results on state tests, many teachers have reverted to safe, formulaic, and sadly counterproductive Omega Replica ways of teaching writing. It amounts to mindless test prep: "Since the state test uses writing prompts that have no real audience and purpose, I should mimic the format to best prepare my students for the test."

This makes no sense when you think about it; please think about it. What you are saying (if you think or say this) is, I have to teach worse to raise test scores; I have to teach poor writing to improve their writing performance. This is an error—and a grave one.

The contrary is the case: The better you teach students to write, the more their scores will improve. That is, of course, how test validity works. You need only look at the samples of student writing released from state and national tests to see this. The papers that get the highest scores are more fun to read than the low-scoring ones, for all the reasons ...
... we have cited above. You need only look at the facts:

A recent study by ACT revealed that about a third of high school students intending to enter higher education do not meet readiness benchmarks for college-level English composition courses (among certain ethnic groups, 50% or more of adolescents do not meet ACT benchmarks), making it unlikely that they will be able to learn effectively in the college setting.

Thirty-five percent of high school graduates in college and 38% of high school graduates in the workforce feel their writing does not meet expectations for quality.

Private companies spend an estimated $3.1 billion annually on remediation, and state governments spend an estimated $221 million annually. (National Commission on Writing, Writing: A Ticket)

Basic writing itself is not the issue; the problem is that most students cannot write with the skill expected of them today. The latest findings Omega Replica Watches from the National Assessment of Educational Progress ("the nation's report card") support those conclusions. These findings indicate that most students have mastered writing basics, but few are able to create precise, engaging, coherent prose. Four out of five students in grades 4, 8, and 12 are at or above the "basic" level of writing. However, only about one-quarter at each grade level are at or above the "proficient" level. Even more telling, only 1 in 100 is thought to be "advanced."