Education Issues in Today's News

I found the following news stories that were in some way related to education that I thought I'd share with you all.

First is one about standardized tests from CNN.com. This summer I was working for a company which produces standardized tests. One of the things that we had to look out for was for test items to be fair for all those taking the test. Sometimes when I hear people speaking about biases found on standardized tests, they begin to complain about it as if it isn't something that we should really be that worried about. However may problems with tests are quite valid. The article that I linked to above is about a problem with items on the Maryland School Assessment test. The items have students match words with similar sounds. That doesn't really sound like much of a problem for most students, but it became an issue when deaf students were required to answer the questions. How is someone who can't hear supposed to know if two words have similar sounds? Furthermore, why would they even need to know that information. Now if all students are going to be required to take the same test, the items should be fair for every student.

The second news story that I saw this afternoon is just ridiculous. Apparently, the Buena Regional School District was going to allow Fox to film The Simple Life at a middle school. They were going to have Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie serve as substitute teachers and cafeteria monitors at the middle school. Who in their right mind would think that this was remotely appropriate, especially for her to work with middle school students? Paris Hilton is hardly known for being of high moral character, not that teachers should be held to a higher standard than anyone else, but I can bet that if I were in a well-publicized sex video, I would be relieved of my position. According to the article, of the 374 parents who returned the permission slips for the program, only 34 objected to it. I would have thought that more would have objected. Anyway, the school board decided not to allow the show to take place at their school because the production company needed a commitment right away, and they weren't prepared to do that.