Deceptive Data: How the Corporate Reform Movement Uses Standardized Tests to Achieve the Neoliberal Agenda

2014 ◽  
pp. 112-124
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Corporate Reform

What the replication reformation wrought

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Spellman ◽  
Daniel Kahneman
Keyword(s):  
Reform Movement ◽  
Short Time

AbstractReplication failures were among the triggers of a reform movement which, in a very short time, has been enormously useful in raising standards and improving methods. As a result, the massive multilab multi-experiment replication projects have served their purpose and will die out. We describe other types of replications – both friendly and adversarial – that should continue to be beneficial.

Analyzing the Potential Benefit of Microcomputer Use for Teaching Figurative Language

1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn A. Nippold ◽  
Ilsa E. Schwarz ◽  
Molly Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Language Intervention ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Educational Materials ◽  
Language Learning Disabilities ◽  
Promising Application ◽  
Experience Difficulty

Microcomputers offer the potential for increasing the effectiveness of language intervention for school-age children and adolescents who have language-learning disabilities. One promising application is in the treatment of students who experience difficulty comprehending figurative expressions, an aspect of language that occurs frequently in both spoken and written contexts. Although software is available to teach figurative language to children and adolescents, it is our feeling that improvements are needed in the existing programs. Software should be reviewed carefully before it is used with students, just as standardized tests and other clinical and educational materials are routinely scrutinized before use. In this article, four microcomputer programs are described and evaluated. Suggestions are then offered for the development of new types of software to teach figurative language.

Dynamic Assessment With Bilinguals: A Focus on Increasing Clinicians' Confidence

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda K. Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Dynamic Assessment ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Idea 2004 ◽  
Disabilities Education Act ◽  
Effective Dynamic ◽  
Education Act

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are obligated to judiciously select and administer appropriate assessments without inherent cultural or linguistic bias (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004). Nevertheless, clinicians continue to struggle with appropriate assessment practices for bilingual children, and diagnostic decisions are too often based on standardized tests that were normed predominately on monolingual English speakers (Caesar & Kohler, 2007). Dynamic assessment is intended to be a valid and unbiased approach for ascertaining what a child knows and can do, yet many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) struggle in knowing what and how to assess within this paradigm. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a clinical scenario and summarize extant research on effective dynamic language assessment practices, with a focus on specific language tasks and procedures, in order to foster SLPs' confidence in their use of dynamic assessment with bilingual children.

‘The Clach’: Alexander Mackenzie and the Land Question in the Late-Nineteenth Century Highlands and Islands

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Land Question

This article uses the career and writings of the Highland land reformer Alexander Mackenzie, to shed new light on the evolution of Highland land reform in the years leading up to the Crofters' Act of 1886. Mackenzie's output as a writer and journalist shows that his early experiences of living and working on the land are vital to understanding his approach to the land question, and led him to focus not on abstract or ideal principles but on building popular consensus to secure the most pressing reforms. This moderate and pragmatic approach was not universally popular though, especially among Mackenzie's more radical reformist contemporaries. The tensions these disagreements created are symptomatic of the problems that beset the ‘Crofting Community’ in the 1880s and ‘90s: problems that would eventually cause the land reform movement to split. Nevertheless, Mackenzie's influence on the Crofters’ War was huge, and deserves greater scholarly recognition.

Evaluation of Writing Assignments

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 214
Author(s):  
Anita Jokić
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Task Completion ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
Job Application ◽  
Written Assignments ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Teacher’S Responsibilities ◽  
Do So

Teaching English as a foreign language is now one of the most important subjects in Croatian secondary schools since English is one of the three obligatory subjects at 'matura' - standardized tests which the seniors need to pass to graduate. Writing is one of the three parts of the EL exam, the other two being listening and reading. When learning a language, students start from listening skill, move on to speaking and reading and finally to most difficult skill to master: writing. Teaching and learning writing faces a lot of challenges since it requires a lot of time to practice and even more to evaluate and monitor progress. Teacher's responsibilities are to regularly provide opportunities to write, encourage students to learn from their mistakes and promote their success. In order to do so, students should be given clear instructions on evaluation/assessment and concise feedback. Since grading written assignments takes up a lot of time, the author proposes rubrics which can be used to assess various types of writing taught at secondary level (description of place/event/person, letters of complaint, job application, invitation, discursive/opinion/for-and-against essay etc.). Author suggests four fixed rubrics and subdivisions: Task completion, Cohesion / coherence, Grammar and Vocabulary. All rubrics and subdivisions are described in the paper. A survey was also conducted on a sample of 140 students and has given an insight into students’ opinion on importance of assessment and feedback and its influence on their progress.

Unstandardizing Testing: Low-Scoring American Minority Students in the Crosshairs of Conservative Policymakers

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Chedhli Nighaoui
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Minority Students ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Cultural Bias ◽  
Testing System ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Opt Out

That standardized tests do not accurately assess the true competencies of minority test takers is a widely shared claim among conservative educationists. The opt-out-of-testing community has lately grown unprecedentedly vocal in several states, questioning even more seriously the accountability of the testing system altogether. This paper adopts a Critical Race Theory perspective to investigate the conceptual underpinnings of conservative criticism as well as the interpretations made popular using quantitative methodology. The key premise of this paper is that a colorblind approach to testing understates the importance of a range of unquantifiable variables, mainly the linguitic and cultural backgrounds of the test takers, in determining assessment outcome. It attempts to demonstrate where specifically standardized tests may not be used as a reliable feedback mechanism and suggests that a more flexible assessment paradigm be considered, one that engages learning quality followup to keep cultural bias to a strict minimum.          

Rashid Rida’s Struggle to Establish A Modern Islamic State

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
Assad N. Busool
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical Presence

Reform movements are important religious phenomena which haveoccurred throughout Islamic history. Medieval times saw theappearance of religious reformers, such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Taimiyah,Ibn Qayim al-Jawziyah and others; however, these reform activitiesdiffered significantly from the modern reform movement. The medievalreformers worked within Muslim society; it was not necessary to dealwith the external challenge presented by Europe as it was for themodern Muslim reformers after the world of Islam lost its independenceand fell under European rule. The powers of Europe believed that Islamwas the only force that impeded them in their quest for world dominanceand, relying on the strength of their physical presence in Muslimcountries, tried to convince the Muslim peoples tgat Islam was ahindrance to their progress and development.Another problem, no less serious than the first, faced by the modernMuslim reformers was the shocking ignorance of the Muslim peoples oftheir religion and their history. For more than four centuries,scholarship in all areas had been in an unabated state of decline. Thosereligious studies which were produced veered far from the spirit ofIslam, and they were so blurred and burdened with myths and legends,that they served only to confuse the masses.The ‘Ulama were worst of all: strictly rejecting change, they still hadthe mentality of their medieval forebearers against whom al-Ghazali,Ibn Taimiyah and others had fought. Hundreds of years behind thetimes, their central concern was tuqlid (the imitation of that which hadpreceeded them through the ages). For centuries, no one had dared toquestion this heritage or point out the religious innovations it impaired.In conjunction with their questioning of the tuqlid, the modernreformers strove to revive the concept of ijtihad (indmendentjudgement) in religious matters, an idea which had been disallowedsince the tenth century. The first to raiseanew the banner of $tihad inthe Arab Muslim world was Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani; after himSheikh Muhammad ‘Abduh in Egypt, and after him, his friend and ...

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